


One Wish

by dracoqueen22



Series: Upon a Star [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Amalgamated Universe, Canon Typical Violence, Character Death, Empurata and Shadowplay, Fairy Tale Retellings/Elements, Implied Tactile, M/M, No Smut, Pre-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-07-27 12:22:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7617955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunstreaker knew there was no point in living in the past. But the future wasn’t looking any brighter. Not for him. Not for Sideswipe. And not for anyone else living here on the edge of Uraya’s Wastes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FHC_Lynn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FHC_Lynn/gifts).



> Short bribed-fic from months ago for FHC-Lynn that blossomed into this huge thing. Loosely based on the fairy tale "Snow White and Rose Red." None of the characters are OCs, though they may appear to be. There is no on-screen nsfw and the rating is for some violence and character death in part three. Otherwise, it's pretty much a romance.

Sunstreaker scraped the last sweep of the skyline and sat back to give his newest piece a critical gaze. It wasn't done, not by a mile, but it wasn't a blank sheet of canvas either. It occupied that interesting in-between state where he didn't loathe it, but he didn't love it.   
  
That could be fixed.   
  
He cycled a ventilation and put the scraper down, only to realize that his break timer was blinking urgently in the corner of his HUD. And, apparently, had been doing so for the past hour.   
  
Oops.   
  
No wonder his arm ached, and his backstrut twinged. Sideswipe was going to yell again. Sunstreaker was supposed to take regular breaks, refuel on time, and walk around so his joints don't lock up.   
  
Again.   
  
Sunstreaker rolled his neck to ease the strain in his cables and pushed to his feet, throwing a protective sheet over the canvas. He would come back to it after a break and, no doubt, a lecture.  
  
Sunstreaker checked his finish in the full-length mirror by the entry, but all spatter and random dirt had been confined to his hands and lower arms. These blemishes were easily handled by a cloth pulled from subspace.   
  
Sunstreaker stepped out of his studio and into the main room of the Energon house he and Sideswipe owned. Well, Sideswipe managed and operated, Sunstreaker mostly used it as a studio and art gallery. Not that there many art-hunters to be found here on the edge of Uraya. Mostly, Sunstreaker sold a few over the intra-net and shipped them out of province.   
  
“There you are!” Sideswipe called out to him from behind the bar. He was currently wiping it down as they had few patrons this time of the cycle. “You're--”  
  
“Late, I know.” Sunstreaker hoped to cut off the lecture. “Do you have my--”  
  
Sideswipe plunked a cube of magnesium-spiced mid-grade on the bar, interrupting Sunstreaker before he could ask for it. “It's not fresh,” he said as he tossed the rag into the collection basket and leaned against the bar. “It would have been, if you'd listened to your break alarm.”   
  
“I know.” Sunstreaker climbed onto a stool and grabbed the cube, taking a sip of it. He grimaced. All of the magnesium had sunk to the bottom. “It won't happen again.”   
  
“Sure it won't.” Sideswipe's field nudged at his. Though his tone was irritated, the rest of it was concern. “I just worry about my little brother.”   
  
Sunstreaker rolled his optics. “We're twins, dumbaft.” He swirled the cube, stirring it, and changed the subject. “Besides, I didn't miss anything, did I?”   
  
Sideswipe's lips curved into a grin. He tilted his chin as though pointing behind Sunstreaker. “Just your pet.”  
  
Sunstreaker swiveled in his stool to see the black and white Empura sitting in the small booth nearest the door. Calling Dent white was probably stretching it, however. He was so filthy that he appeared brown. His three digit clawed hands – pincers really – fiddled with the drink pouch on the table in front of him.   
  
At least Sideswipe had fed him. Sometimes, he wouldn't no matter how much Sunstreaker fussed at him.   
  
“He's not my pet,” Sunstreaker muttered, sliding off the stool.   
  
Sideswipe pushed off the bar. “So you say. Just hurry up and get it in back before it scares off any potentials.”   
  
Sunstreaker frowned at his twin, but saved that particular argument for another time. Dent looked up as though hearing their conversation, his single yellow optic eerie as it focused on them.   
  
Sunstreaker had gotten used to it, but Sideswipe still shivered theatrically. There were a lot of Empuras around here. The edge of Uraya was home to the slums; the residents had given it the name “Wastes” because that was all that was left.   
  
Fitting.   
  
Sunstreaker approached the table as Dent scrambled to get out from the booth, moving awkwardly. There was something in the stubs of what could have been wings or sensory panels on his back that left him clumsy. How could Sideswipe look at Dent and not feel pity?   
  
Maybe Sunstreaker had gotten all the compassion in their shared spark.   
  
“I apologize,” Dent said, the edges of his words wreathed in static. “Do I need to leave?”   
  
Sunstreaker cycled a ventilation. “The dining room, yes. The building, no. Come on. You look in need of a wash.”   
  
“Oh, but I--”  
  
“That wasn't a suggestion.” Sunstreaker snagged Dent's refueling pouch off the table, noting it was still half-full. “Ignore my stupid brother. He's overprotective.”   
  
“Perhaps with good reason?”   
  
Sunstreaker rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “The world may never know.” He tossed Sideswipe a glare, but his twin ignored him, attention fully on two customers entering the building.   
  
Dent's pincers clicked together, a sign of anxiety. “I would hate to be a bother.”   
  
“You say that every time.” Sunstreaker hooked an arm through Dent's, trying not to cringe as grime flaked down. Well, he'd take care of that soon enough. “If you were a bother, I'd have tossed you on your aft already.”   
  
Dent made a noise, a blat of static, but didn't argue. His optic dimmed as he let Sunstreaker steer him to the back of the store, which doubled as his and Sideswipe's living quarters. It wasn't much, but they had a small washrack all their own, and a berth for each of them, when they didn't share.   
  
“Washracks first,” Sunstreaker said as he steered Dent toward it, careful to avoid the furniture and making a mental note of the dust Dent left in his wake. “You're filthy.”   
  
Dent ducked his head. “I apologize.”   
  
“Well, it can't be helped, I guess. Where the frag are you recharging?”   
  
Dent's armor drew tight, his field nonexistent. A topic he preferred not to discuss then. Sunstreaker wouldn't push. He knew how much he hated to be pushed when he didn't want to talk. Sideswipe was awful about that, pushing and pushing until Sunstreaker had to stomp away just to get some peace.   
  
“Okay then.” Sunstreaker urged Dent into the washracks ahead of him, and gestured the Empura to the only stool they had. “Sit. I'll give you a hand.”   
  
Dent startled. “Oh, but I can--”  
  
“Nope. My rack, my rules.” Sunstreaker managed a small grin and pointed to the stool again. “Sit.”   
  
Dent cycled a ventilation and obeyed, though stiff and uncoordinated. “You are a kind mech, Sunstreaker.”   
  
He snorted as he turned on the solvent, setting it to a comfortable temperature which Sideswipe told him barely counted as lukewarm. Pfft. What did he know?  
  
“Not many would agree with you there.” Sunstreaker grabbed his bucket of supplies, including a scrub brush, and directed the stream at Dent.   
  
The solvent sluiced over dingy brown plating, washing away the first coating of filth. It was going to take a lot more than a little rinsing to get him clean. He had grime in his gears!   
  
Sunstreaker shuddered. He looked down at his arm, and it was dusted in filth, too. How could a mech function like this?   
  
“I've been told I'm damn hard to live with.” Sunstreaker took up position behind Dent and started to scrub, though he was careful to avoid the two ridges on his backplate. They looked raw, as though the excision had been done improperly. “But enough about me. I haven't seen you in weeks. Where've you been?”   
  
Dent ducked his head, his pincers fiddling together. “I have been hiding.”   
  
“Hiding?” Why would an Empura need to hide in the Wastes? It's not like regular mechs wandered down there. No one came to the Wastes except…   
  
Oh.   
  
Sunstreaker felt like an idiot.   
  
“From the Regent's Cleaners,” he guessed.   
  
Dent's shoulders hunched. The little antenna on top of his head twitched. “The Wastes are much emptier as of late.”   
  
“Me and Sides noticed that bots are going missing. But we didn't realize it was that bad.” Sunstreaker blew air through his vents and started scrubbing at Dent's shoulders. White and black started showing clean, sending a pang of longing through his spark.   
  
White and black. Good colors. Classic. Clean. _Familiar_. Pretty common in retrospect. A dozen mechs passed by the cafe with such plain color schemes every day.   
  
None of them were the mech Sunstreaker waited for.   
  
“I guess you could say that the Regent's doing his job,” Sunstreaker muttered with a shrug. Not that they paid him or anything.   
  
The Regent had been here as long as Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, maybe longer. He was the unofficial leader of the Wastes, and their corner of Uraya. He had a talon in every energon storage down here, not to mention what little they had for an economy. No one contested him. No one had the bearings to do it.   
  
Dent made a noncommittal noise. His head bobbed.   
  
“You should stay here,” Sunstreaker suggested as he took Dent's arm in hand, gently scrubbing around the joint and the raw area around his wrist. Whoever had done the surgery on him had done a slag-poor job of it. “I mean, instead of hiding. I'll clear it with Sides.”   
  
Dent shook his head, easing his arm from Sunstreaker's grip. “No. It is not safe.”   
  
“Pfft. We can take care of ourselves.” Sunstreaker reached for Dent's arm again.   
  
Dent's optic seemed to gleam at him, his field reduced to a shivery, thin layer. “No,” he repeated, and his pincer trembled. “It is not safe.”   
  
“You let me be the judge of that,” Sunstreaker insisted as he shifted to Dent's other arm. Beneath the grime and the Empurata, Dent might have been a handsome mech once upon a time.   
  
Sunstreaker sometimes wondered what Dent had done to incur the wrath of the council and earn this punishment? To have his frame disfigured and to be dumped like so much trash into Uraya's Wastes. Dent wasn't like most of the others. He didn't seem one-step removed from violence and madness.   
  
He was quiet. Calm. Contemplative.   
  
_Lost_.   
  
He couldn't remember anything, he claimed. Now maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't. Empuras usually didn't forget their pasts, but some of the welding on Dent's frame looked substandard. Maybe the Empurata procedure was rushed. Maybe he did something bad enough to earn Shadowplay, too.   
  
Who knew?   
  
But he wasn't dangerous. Sunstreaker was sure of that.   
  
“You know we sometimes go to Kaon to take a few bouts in the Arena, right? For extra creds?” That and the Regent occasionally asked them to fight on his behalf, and he would serve as their sponsor.   
  
Sunstreaker hated it when Sideswipe agreed to do it. Then again, they'd already learned that you just didn't say no to the Regent.   
  
The nubs on Dent's back twitched. “That is dangerous.”   
  
“So's living.” Sunstreaker shrugged and flicked a finger. “Up. Gotta get your legs.”   
  
Dent's field shied away from his. He reached out with his right hand. “I can do it myself.”   
  
“Properly?” Sunstreaker arched an orbital ridge. “Without breaking my scrubber? Cause I'll be very put out if you do.”   
  
Dent's optic dimmed. “I am… growing more proficient,” he said with a cycle of his ventilations, gusting a burst of steam into the air. “And I need the practice.”  
  
Sunstreaker squinted at him. Dent held fast.   
  
What the slag, eh? It was pretty cheap. He could always get another one. Besides, there was something desperate in the quiet request. A desire to be able to do something for himself perhaps.   
  
Sunstreaker could understand that.   
  
He handed over the scrubber and let Dent work on his legs while he grabbed the sprayer off the wall and aimed it at Dent. The floor beneath them was grey and brown from filth. Sideswipe was going to flip.   
  
Sunstreaker kept one optic on his own actions, and the other on Dent, but the Empura was manipulating the brush pretty well. He hadn't been exaggerating when he said he'd improved. He no longer fumbled with the pincers, though the care he used might have been exaggerated.   
  
“When you're clean, I'm going to give you a wax,” Sunstreaker said as pitted and dented armor came into view. Hmm. He'd probably pull out the dent-puller, too.   
  
Dent stiffened and turned toward Sunstreaker, which resulted in him nearly getting sprayed in the face. “You do not have to spoil me so,” he said, twisting to avoid the solvent spray. “I could not ask you to--”  
  
“See. That's the thing.” Sunstreaker plucked the scrubber from Dent's pincer and aimed the spray at the Empura's legs. “You didn't ask. I offered. And I'm told that when someone offers something, it comes without strings.”   
  
Pincers twisted together, scraping noisily. Sunstreaker shut off the spray and reached out, gently laying his hand where Dent's claws had tangled. What was it about this Empura that tugged at his spark? Honestly. Sometimes, Sunstreaker couldn't explain it either.   
  
“I mean it,” he said, and squeezed Dent's pincers, hoping he could at least feel the pressure of the grip.   
  
Of course, that was the moment Sunstreaker's private comm buzzed loudly. --Stop playing with your pet and get out here,-- Sideswipe demanded without so much as a segue.   
  
Sunstreaker's engine growled as his mood instantly plummeted downward. --He's not my pet, Sides! Primus!--  
  
\--Whatever. Starscream's here, so stick it in a closet or something and get out here before he thinks we need an inspection or some slag,-- Sideswipe retorted, and abruptly shut down the comm.   
  
Well, if the Regent was here, then Sunstreaker supposed he could excuse Sideswipe's rudeness.   
  
This time.   
  
They were still going to have words about the way Sideswipe treated Dent and the other Empuras however.   
  
“Sunstreaker?”   
  
He shook his head, shutting off the spray and snagging two fluffy cloths from the rack. He tossed both at Dent.   
  
“I'd stay to help, but the Regent just showed up.”   
  
Dent went stiff all over. His armor clamped tight, optic brightening. His field wildly flared, before he reeled it in to nothing.   
  
“Relax,” Sunstreaker said as he backed toward the door. “I'm not goin' to turn you in and Sideswipe won't either. Just stay in here and don't come out until I come get you, okay?”   
  
Dent nodded, half-buried beneath the fluffy towels. “Yes, sir.”   
  
Sunstreaker paused in the doorway. His tank clenched. “Please don't call me that,” he murmured, and left, closing the door behind him.   
  
He doubted the Regent would come into their personal quarters, but sometimes, Starscream did conduct raids if he thought anyone in his jurisdiction was hiding something of importance. Sunstreaker and his brother worked for Starscream, which offered them some protection.   
  
But then Scoop had worked for Starscream, too, and no one had seen him in months.   
  
Sunstreaker glanced down at himself, frowning when he found a few spatters of solvent. He absently wiped at them as he eased out of his and Sides' apartment, locking the door behind him. Starscream didn't usually take much notice of him since he found Sideswipe far more charming, but Sunstreaker didn't want to gather the Regent's attention either. He didn't know how to play the word games that Sideswipe did.   
  
“There you are!” Sideswipe said brightly, the tone at odds with the anxiety rippling across their bond.   
  
Sunstreaker's gaze skittered to their visitors, Regent Starscream and the armed guard he never went without, though today there was only the one. A small grounder with a blue visor – went by the name Ricochet. He was a smart aft and a half, which meant he got on well with Sideswipe.   
  
Sunstreaker couldn't stand him.   
  
“I was washing up,” Sunstreaker said crossly as he ducked behind the bar, giving Starscream and his guard a wide berth.   
  
Sideswipe scowled at him. “Polish later. Work now.”   
  
“Since when are you the boss of me?”   
  
“Since always.”   
  
“Sparklings,” Starscream interrupted with a drawl, one orbital ridge raised. “As entertaining as I find your brotherly spats, I do have business to attend.”   
  
Sunstreaker shot his brother a dirty look, but Sideswipe was already easing out from behind the bar.   
  
“Good point. Cause we're all in the business of creds, am I right?” Sideswipe said, flashing one of his most charming grins. “Follow me, gentlemechs. My office is this way.”   
  
“Yes, I remember,” Starscream said, his tone cool, as he flicked his wings backward. He moved ahead of Sideswipe, every inch the commanding Regent, and Sideswipe just shrugged and followed after him.   
  
Ricochet trailed them both at a leisurely pace and took up a position just outside the door as Sideswipe and Starscream vanished inside. He folded his arms over his chestplate and managed to look just menacing enough to scare off half of their customers.   
  
Great. Sideswipe was going to blame Sunstreaker for that, he just knew it.   
  
“How are you supposed to guard him from outside the door?” Sunstreaker asked as he picked up the glasses Sideswipe had been cleaning and started wiping them dry.   
  
Ricochet tilted his head, visor gleaming. “Are you telling me your twin is a threat to my employer?”   
  
“...No.”   
  
Ricochet smirked and rolled his shoulders. “Then I'm exactly where I need to be. I'm here to kick aft, not pay attention to numbers.”   
  
Sunstreaker blinked. “Whatever,” he said, turning his attention to two mechs who'd just walked in the door. Sideswipe would fuss if he drove away business again.   
  
He tried not to think about Dent hiding in the washracks. He hoped Dent didn't try to sneak out the back and take off. Sunstreaker was serious about offering him a place to stay. He didn't want Dent to disappear like the others.  
  
Luckily, Ricochet was content to sip on his engex and leave Sunstreaker be. Which meant Sunstreaker could fret over Dent in silence, and glance at the office door, silently urging Sideswipe to hurry.   
  


~

  
  
“So.” Sideswipe dropped into the squeaky chair behind his desk. “What brings you to my humble place of business?”  
  
Starscream rolled his optics. “Spare me your games, Sideswipe.” He lowered himself into a chair with more grace than Sideswipe had shown. “I don't intend to be here all afternoon.”   
  
“Fair enough.” Sideswipe grinned and folded his arms across his belly. “What, when, and how much?”   
  
Starscream produced a datapad and set it on the desk. One taloned finger pushed it closer, shoving aside a cup of styluses in the process.   
  
“Standard procurement fee,” Starscream said. “And as for when, the answer is the same as always.”   
  
Sideswipe dragged the datapad closer before he picked it up. “As soon as possible then.” He flicked it on, only glancing at it to be sure it had a requisition on it. “Think someday you'll tell me why you need this stuff?”   
  
“No.” Starscream's optics narrowed. “Your job is not to ask questions, remember?”   
  
Sideswipe flashed a grin. “Can't help being curious.”   
  
“I don't need your charm either.”   
  
“Right.” As unfriendly as always. That was Starscream.   
  
Sideswipe sighed and skimmed the contents of the datapad. Half of these items he had no idea what they were, but the identifying glyphs were clear as day – medical equipment. _Rare_ medical equipment.   
  
“This is grey cargo,” Sideswipe observed.   
  
“Your point?”   
  
Sideswipe wiggled the datapad. “It won't be easy to get.”   
  
Starscream's right wing twitched. It was always the first to go. “Are you saying you can't?”   
  
“No.” Sideswipe lowered the datapad back to the desktop. “But it won't be cheap.”   
  
“Fine.” Starscream tossed a cred chip onto the desk. “This should be more than adequate.”   
  
Sideswipe pulled out his reader and inserted the chip, his orbital ridges rising at the amount on it. Starscream only gave him this high of a budget when it was something he had a desperate need to acquire.  
  
“I'm guessin' this means you want the best,” he said as his spark throbbed harder in his chassis. Starscream wasn't playing games. “That or you gave me a nice bonus.”   
  
Starscream stared at him, his optics flat and unamused. “I want the highest quality you can find,” he said. “Now. Can you do it?”   
  
“Sure thing.” Sideswipe grinned and stowed both reader and datapad in his subspace. He rose to his feet. “Have I ever failed you before?”   
  
“No. And if you wish to maintain functioning, you won't now or in the future.” Starscream rose more languidly, his wings high and rigid.   
  
Sideswipe worked his intake, offering an uneasy smile. “Nothing like a little idle threat to grease a business deal,” he said as he eased around the desk, preceding Starscream to the door. “That's what I love about you, Regent. You're nothing if not blunt.”   
  
Starscream gave him a sideways look. “So you say,” he said crisply and moved past Sideswipe, back into the business proper.   
  
Primus.   
  
A shudder raced down Sideswipe's spinal strut. He allowed himself a second to regain his composure before he followed Starscream out.   
  
The Seeker was already almost to the exit. Not one for lingering to socialize, that one. All of Sideswipe's other clients tended to take advantage of his engex, but not Starscream. Business, like everything else, was perfunctory.   
  
Any other time, Sideswipe could appreciate that. But he thought about the datapad and the chip in his subspace, and his tanks lurched.   
  
Starscream was dangerous. He began to wonder if he might even be in over his head, except it was too late to back out now.   
  
Sighing, Sideswipe planted a smile on his lips and locked his office behind him. Time to get to work. Poor Sunstreaker looked harried and here came Huffer. Mech was might particular about his engex, and Sunny always mixed it wrong.   
  
Sideswipe would worry about Starscream and what the Regent wanted later.   
  


~

  
  
Starscream left.   
  
Ricochet, however, didn't, which prompted Sunstreaker to linger as well. He couldn't seem too eager to take off otherwise Ricochet might think he was hiding something.   
  
“Uh, shouldn't you be watching your boss's aft?”   
  
“I do that all the time. It's a fine aft,” Ricochet said with a flash of his visor. He pulled out a stool and sat at the counter. “But he's with Airrazor where I can't follow so I figure, I have me a sit down and taste what I'm told is the finest engex in all of Uraya.”   
  
Sideswipe smirked and leaned against the counter. “The finest, huh?” Across the bond, Sunstreaker could tell he was flattered, though it wasn't like it was the first time someone had complimented him. “Who told you that?”   
  
“Mmm. Everybody.” Ricochet folded his arms on the bartop and leaned forward. “So why don't you give me what you think is your best mix, and I'll tell you what I think.”   
  
Sideswipe chuckled. “Deal.”   
  
\--You can go, bro. I can handle this.--  
  
Sunstreaker shifted. --You sure?-- He didn't trust Ricochet any further than he could throw the soldier. Frankly, Sunstreaker didn't trust anyone who hung around with Starscream.   
  
\--Positive. He ain't nothing but a flirt. All talk. No action,-- Sideswipe replied as he spun around from the bartop and started mixing up his specialty.   
  
“You want it sweet or spicy, mech?” Sideswipe called over his shoulder.   
  
Ricochet braced an elbow on the counter, propping his bumper against the edge. “Whatever you think I like, hot stuff.”   
  
Ugh. Yeah. It sounded like Sideswipe had this well in hand.   
  
“I'm going in the back,” Sunstreaker muttered, failing to hide the disgust in his tone. Sides would take anything to berth, wouldn't he?   
  
Sunstreaker spun on a heelstrut and headed toward the door, only to be drawn up short as Sideswipe rushed to catch him, one hand on his elbow.   
  
“Come back out later, okay?” Sideswipe murmured, locking optics with him. “I gotta call Swin and you know he's really weird about when he's available.”   
  
Sunstreaker frowned. “Can't you call Smokescreen instead? Swindle is a cheat.” Not that Smokescreen was much better, but at least they got what they paid for with Smokescreen, unlike Swindle, who always tried to pass off substandard materials with a high markup.   
  
“Would if I could, but Screen don't have what Starscream needs.” Sideswipe squeezed his arm in a show of affection. “Besides, Screen is still mad at me.”   
  
Sunstreaker sighed, pinching the bridge of his nasal ridge. “Maybe if you didn't frag him and run--”  
  
“This and that are two different things,” Sideswipe interrupted loudly, with an askance look at Ricochet, who was watching both of them with evident amusement. “Just get you-know-who settled and come back out later. Please?”   
  
He never could resist when Sideswipe did that. When he pleaded with large, bright optics and an earnest smile on his lips. It was that charm that got him out of so many scrapes and into so many berths.   
  
“Fine,” Sunstreaker muttered and lowered his hand. “But you're calling Smokescreen and apologizing to him tomorrow.”   
  
“Deal.” Sideswipe winked at him and let go of Sunstreaker's arm. “Now, shoo.” He spun around, all but strutting back to the counter where Ricochet waited. “One Special Swerve coming right up!”   
  
Sunstreaker bit back another sigh and turned around, refusing to let anything else stop him from slipping into the back. He hoped Dent hadn't gone yet.   
  
His and Sides' apartment was dim and quiet. All Sunstreaker could hear was the quiet ticking of the wall chrono, the numbers gleaming brightly at him. The door to the washrack was still closed.   
  
Sunstreaker palmed the door open and the tension whooshed out of him, tension he hadn't realized he carried.   
  
Dent was still there. He sat on the small bench tucked against the far wall, the towel lying in his lap, though it was wound around his pincers. His head snapped up as the door opened, and though his single optic couldn't convey emotion as much as a face, there was something fearful in the brightness of it.   
  
Fear that whisked away into relief as Dent sagged.   
  
“It's just me,” Sunstreaker said, trying for a smile. “Don't worry. The Regent's gone.” He gestured to the Empura. “Come on. Let's get you polished.” He'd have to take a damp cloth to Dent's frame, too. Some of the solvent had dried in ugly streaks.   
  
Dent pushed to his feet, wobbling a little. His optic dimmed, as though he'd been running himself ragged with worry. “Is polish not a little excessive?” he asked as he inched out of the washracks, his armor still clamped tight.   
  
“Not to me. Polish is necessary. Especially if you're going to stay here.” Sunstreaker fished around his subspace, producing the half-consumed pouch Dent had been working on earlier. “Here. Finish this.” He plucked the towel from Dent's pincers, replacing it with the pouch.   
  
“You are kind,” Dent murmured, his field reaching out for Sunstreaker's, though it was jagged around the edges. Empuras always felt like that, as though whatever punished them this way made their entire existence one of pain.   
  
“You say that often enough, I might actually believe it.” Sunstreaker grinned, though it was crooked.   
  
“It is the truth.”   
  
Sunstreaker made a non-committal noise and led Dent to his own room. He and Sides could double up for a night until they got their spare berth from storage. Unless Sideswipe offered Ricochet more than a special drink.   
  
Gross.   
  
Sunstreaker sat Dent down on a stool and retrieved his spare polishing supplies from the cabinet, spreading them out on the berth. Dent, at least, had finally relaxed a bit more. He sipped on the energon pouch, his armor easing away from his protoform. Fully relaxed, Sunstreaker could see past the plating to the scars on Dent's protoform.   
  
Sometimes, the sight of them made Sunstreaker angry. Dent seemed genuinely nice and respectful. What could he have done to deserve this?   
  
“You really don't remember anything?” Sunstreaker asked, though he hesitated to break the comfortable quiet.   
  
It was rare to find a mech who didn't loathe silence. Sideswipe could never stand for it. He insisted on filling quiet with noise, with chatter or music or some vid on the screen. Whereas Sunstreaker liked companionable silence. Dent's lack of fidgeting seemed to indicate he liked it, too.  
  
“Shadows,” Dent answered, his vocals soft. His head dipped a little, pincers squeezing the pouch. “Echoes. I feel as though the memories are there, but I cannot access them. I do not know if I am being prevented from doing so, or if I lack the hardware.”   
  
Sunstreaker inclined his head. “I can't imagine what that's like,” he said as the wax worked its way into Dent's plating, adding a thin shine that seemed almost ridiculous over the faded paint.   
  
“Lonely,” Dent answered quietly, and the plating across his upper back shuffled, twitching the stumps of whatever had been on his back. “But I am finding it less so as of late.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
“Because,” Dent half-turned, the glow of his optic now visible to Sunstreaker, “you are kind.”   
  
Sunstreaker's face flushed with heat. “I'm really not,” he murmured and ducked his head, trying to focus on the last stubborn smudges of wax.   
  
Dent made a noise of disagreement, but said nothing further. They fell back into the comfortable silence. The tension was gone from his frame, however, and that was the greatest gift of all.   
  


~

  
  
Sideswipe balanced the till; Sunstreaker straightened and cleaned. They'd been closing Color and Conversation like this together for decades. It was a process that worked. Sunstreaker had exacting standards; Sideswipe had the processor for numbers.   
  
Sometimes, they talked. Sometimes, they didn't.   
  
Today was one of the former. Only Sunstreaker should have anticipated this topic.   
  
“So how long is your pet going to stay with us?”   
  
Sunstreaker turned a chair upside down and sat it on top of the table with a little more force than was necessary. He glared at his twin.   
  
Sideswipe held up his hands. “Fine, fine. He's not your pet. Even though he totally is.” He gave Sunstreaker a crooked grin. “Just answer the question.”   
  
“I don't know,” Sunstreaker replied honestly and moved on to the next table, wiping it down. Honestly, that damn rust flavoring got everywhere. Why did Sideswipe insist on dusting everything with it? “I need you to help me get out the spare berth.”   
  
“The spare?” Sideswipe's engine revved. “Sunny, that doesn't sound like temporary arrangements. That sounds like ya want to keep him.”   
  
Sideswipe's stare prickled between his shoulders. “It's not like he has anywhere else to go, Sides.”   
  
“Neither do the dozens of other Empuras out there, but I don't see you opening our doors to them.” Sideswipe flung a hand out at him. “And don't you dare start either. We're doing good, but not that good. We can't feed every stray that comes begging at the doors. We’re one emergency away from bedding out there with the Empties.”   
  
Sunstreaker focused intently on stacking chairs. “I know that.”   
  
“I don't really think ya do sometimes.” Sideswipe muttered something, numbers perhaps, and scribbled onto the scratched datapad he insisted on using for accounting purposes. “And how do ya know he's not going to kill us in our recharge? I like my spark where it is, bro.”   
  
“He won't.”   
  
“How do you know?”   
  
“Cause he's not dangerous!” Sunstreaker huffed and cast his brother a glare, but Sideswipe was doing a good job of not looking at him, pretending he was double-checking the receipts.   
  
Sideswipe snorted. “You don't know that. Someone did that to him for a reason, Sunny. Mechs don't get taken apart unless they did something terrible.”   
  
“Or maybe he didn't do anything,” Sunstreaker snapped, ex-venting a loud burst. “Sometimes, mechs are just inconvenient or in the way or in the wrong place at the wrong time.”   
  
Sideswipe planted his hands on the counter and stared at him. “Or they deserve what they get. Maybe even worse.”   
  
Sunstreaker's ventilations were uneven. He folded his arms over his chestplate. “Did we?”   
  
Sideswipe blinked, physically recoiling. “Sunny...”   
  
“We were abandoned like they were,” Sunstreaker said, his shoulders hunching. It hurt his spark to talk about this, but ignoring the truth didn't make it any less true. “We were left for scrap, left to starve. Did we deserve that?”   
  
Sideswipe vaulted over the counter, his field reaching for Sunstreaker even before he did. “Of course we didn't. That's different.”   
  
“It's not at all.” Sunstreaker shifted away from his brother. “We don't know enough about him to say anything, Sides. So stop judging him by the way he looks.”   
  
“Okay. Fine. I will.” Sideswipe held up his hands, only to tilt his head and peer at him. “Why do you care so much?”   
  
Sunstreaker frowned, his orbital ridge drawing down. “I just do.”   
  
Sideswipe tilted his head, optics narrowing. He stared at Sunstreaker for a long moment, his field probing at Sunstreaker's.   
  
“You don't 'just' anything,” he said, and stepped close enough to touch, his frown deepening. “I can't believe it. You're falling for that Empura, aren't you?”   
  
“I'm not! I'm just...” His engine screeched, ventilations stuttered.   
  
Sideswipe stepped close enough that their armor brushed. “Hey,” he murmured, resting his hand on Sunstreaker's arm. “Prowl's not coming back, all right? You got to face that. I get why you're doing this with the Empura, I do, but don't let it be anything more than a distraction, okay? There's no future with it.”   
  
Sunstreaker eased away from his brother and snagged the broom, focusing on sweeping up a clump of dust. “I don't need you to tell me that,” he muttered.   
  
Sideswipe sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. “If you say so.” He waved a hand of dismissal and went back behind the bar. “Dent can stay,” he added as he picked up his datapad. “For a little while anyway.”   
  
Sunstreaker made a noncommittal noise. He didn't want to discuss this any further and neither did Sideswipe apparently.   
  
They finished the rest of their closing duties in relative quiet, with the only the clatter and clank of Sunstreaker cleaning to break the silence.   
  
“I'll help you get the spare berth tomorrow,” Sideswipe said as he met Sunstreaker at the door to their shared apartment. He handed over the financial datapad. “I'm not going to be home most of the night anyway.”   
  
“What? Why not?” Sunstreaker took the datapad, but couldn't hide the surprise in his tone. Or the worry.   
  
Had he made Sideswipe angry?  
  
“Got a date.” Sideswipe grinned, crooked and handsome. “So don't wait up.”   
  
The tension released from Sunstreaker's frame. “Oh.” He rolled his optics. “You keep on like this, you're going to wind up with a virus the clinic can't cure.”   
  
Sideswipe patted him gently on the cheek. “You're so sweet to worry about me, Sunny.” He winked and spun on a heelstrut. “You can go on into the apartment. I'll lock up.”   
  
Sunstreaker twisted his jaw. “You're going to be careful, right?”   
  
“Have you ever known me not to be?”   
  
Yes. More frequently than Sunstreaker would like. He cycled a ventilation and tossed the cleaning cloth into the bin with the rest of the dirty ones.   
  
“Don't wait up either,” Sideswipe called to him just as Sunstreaker reached the door.   
  
Sunstreaker rolled his optics. “I never do,” he said, and slipped inside, closing the door behind him. He'd learned his lesson ages ago though that didn't stop him from worrying.   
  
Sideswipe could take care of himself. They both could. You didn't grow up on the streets without learning a trick or two. But still…  
  
He was the only brother, the only family Sunstreaker had. Worry was part of the package.   
  
Sunstreaker scraped a hand down his face, only to frown when he realized his fingers were still damp from cleaning fluid. He hated the chemical smell of it. Time for a quick rinse then.   
  
As he passed the two berthrooms, however, he noticed that the door to his own was open. It hadn't been when he left, and the dim glow of an optic from within was the reason why.   
  
Sunstreaker's frown deepened and he paused. “Did I wake you?” he asked.   
  
The berth creaked as Dent rose and approached the door, though he hovered in the shadows of it. “No. I was not yet recharging.” He lingered there in the small opening, pincers twisting together. “All is well?”   
  
“Why wouldn't it be?”  
  
“Because I am causing disruption,” Dent said and his gaze dropped, optic focused on the floor. “I should leave.”   
  
Sunstreaker blinked. “No, you're not. Why would you think...” He paused and squinted. “Wait, were you listening to us?”   
  
Dent ducked his head, until Sunstreaker could only see the top of it. “I apologize. It was not my intent to eavesdrop, only your voices carry.”   
  
“Yeah, Sideswipe can be loud.” Sunstreaker cycled a vent. “No, you don't have to leave. We got it sorted. Sides and me, we're brothers. We fight. It happens.”   
  
“Brothers….” Dent's ventilations rattled a gust as a shiver raced over his plating. “I think… I believe I understand something of brothers.”   
  
Sunstreaker's lips quirked. “You have one?”   
  
Dent drifted backward a step, as though taking solace in the dark. “I think, perhaps I do.” He lifted his gaze back to Sunstreaker, his optic brightening by degrees. “Though I do not recall. I feel he was vexing.”   
  
“Like Sideswipe.” Sunstreaker chuckled. “I'm not surprised.” He braced a hand on the doorway, leaning against it. “He can be an aft, especially when he thinks he's right or he thinks he's protecting me or some such slag.”   
  
Dent laughed, though it was more of a rattling wheeze. “Yes. That does indeed sound familiar.”   
  
Sunstreaker stared.   
  
Dent had never laughed before. It barely counted as a laugh, but Sunstreaker was going to note it anyway. There was something familiar in the laugh, the tone of it, but that familiarity was there and gone again.   
  
How could Sideswipe think he was dangerous?  
  
“Anyway, go back to recharge. I'm just going to rinse off and then climb into Sideswipe's berth since he won't be here tonight,” Sunstreaker said, backing away from the door. “I'll be that way if you need me.” He pointed.   
  
Dent bobbed his head. “Good recharge, Sunstreaker.”   
  
“And to you.” Sunstreaker smiled to himself and left Dent to recharge. He needed to rinse, and then lie alone in his berth and worry about Sideswipe.   
  


~

  
  
Sunstreaker must never know.   
  
Honestly, Sideswipe shouldn't even be thinking about his brother at a time like this, but given his berthmate, the subject came up. Because this wasn't a random encounter. This was a repeated visitor to the same berth. One Sideswipe could have never expected.   
  
“Mmm.” Ricochet purred, stretching his arms above his head as his plating shivered from the last vestiges of overload. “You always know how to do me right.”   
  
Sideswipe grinned as Ricochet resettled, blanketing Sideswipe's lower half with his weight. “You're not so bad yourself.”   
  
Ricochet chuckled, his visor a deep violet. His engine purred, vibrating through Sideswipe's legs. “Practice makes perfect.”   
  
No.   
  
Sunstreaker wouldn't understand this. He was wary of Starscream, he loathed the Regent's guards, and he definitely didn't like Ricochet. He wouldn't understand why Sideswipe had been sneaking around with Ricochet for months.   
  
Sideswipe listened to the arrhythmic tics as Ricochet's plating cooled down, his vents cycling slower and slower. “I should leave soon,” he murmured, though Ricochet tracing odd patterns on the inside of his thigh armor was good incentive to stay.   
  
“What? Sunstreaker can't tuck himself in at night?” Ricochet chuckled and curled his arm tighter around Sideswipe's left leg. “He's a full-grown mech, ain't he?”   
  
“He is. He's just...” Sideswipe ex-vented, his right hand dropping to rest on Ricochet's head. He teased the mech's sensory horns with a thumb. “I don't know. He's got this weird obsession with one of the Empuras hanging around the cafe, and I don't want him getting hurt again.”   
  
There were lots of Empuras in the Wastes. Luckily, it wasn't a crime to associate with one. The Regent didn't much care what you did with an Empura, but the fact that they were disappearing was concerning. Sideswipe trusted that Ricochet wouldn't bring it up to his boss, however. Ricochet had rules about keeping business and personal separate.   
  
Though that didn't explain what he was doing here and now. Sideswipe was pretty much a clash of the two.   
  
Ricochet rubbed his cheek on Sideswipe's thigh. “Again?”   
  
“It's a long story.”   
  
One of Ricochet's clawed fingers slid into a seam, scraping over the cables beneath. Sideswipe shivered, trying to fight off the rising arousal.   
  
“If it'll keep ya here, then I got time,” Ricochet purred and slid his free hand down Sideswipe's leg.   
  
Sideswipe grinned. “Well, with an offer like that, how can I say no?”   
  
Ricochet pinched one of his inner thigh cables. “Oy. I'm not hearin' any story down here.”   
  
Sideswipe peered at him, honestly confused. “You really want to hear about my brother's broken spark?”   
  
“I could always use a good berth-time tale.” Ricochet rapped his fingers over Sideswipe's knee. “Besides, I like me a good drama.”   
  
Sideswipe chuckled. “Okay then. Well, awhile back there was this mech hanging around, the kind you could tell didn't belong here. He was smart, scary smart, and clean and polite.”   
  
“That says a lot 'bout your customers if he didn't belong.”   
  
“Says a lot 'bout Uraya,” Sideswipe corrected. He shifted to get comfortable, finding that he didn't mind Ricochet's weight on his legs. “Plus, he was obviously from Praxus. He had those shoulder things, fake wings.”   
  
“Mmmm.” Ricochet purred and wriggled against Sideswipe's leg. “Sensory flats. Fun to play with.”   
  
Sideswipe laughed. “Yeah, those. Anyway, he kept coming around, and he and Sunstreaker hit it off. Love at first sight or some scrap.”   
  
“You don't believe in it?”   
  
“I think it's a cute story for sparklings.” Sideswipe shrugged and stroked the nearest of Ricochet's sensory horns. “Why? Do you?”   
  
Ricochet tickled behind his knee, making Sideswipe shiver. “I think yer gettin' distracted from my story, Sides.”   
  
“Okay, okay.” Sideswipe cycled a ventilation. “Anyway, they got close. Real close, and Sunstreaker fell hard. I've never seen him that happy.”   
  
Frag, before Prowl, Sideswipe wasn't sure he'd ever seen his brother cheerful. He'd smiled often with Prowl. He would light up like a supernova.   
  
He had, of all things, dared to hope in a city like Uraya where mecha came to suffer or die, sometimes both.   
  
“I'm sensin' a but.”   
  
Sideswipe shook himself out of the memory. “Yeah. One orn, Prowl up and vanished. His comm went dead. He was nowhere to be found, and believe me, I looked.”   
  
Ricochet's field went weird and wonky. “You think foul play?”   
  
“I think he got bored and went to find someone else to play with. Prowl was Elite, if you ask me, and came here to slum it.”   
  
Ricochet made a noncommittal noise. “I'm sensin' some hostility.”   
  
“Prowl better hope he don't come back.” Sideswipe's engine revved, his distaste for the flaky Praxian filling his field. “There's nothing that frags me off more than hurting my brother.”   
  
Ricochet shivered, his field rising to meet Sideswipe's with an edge of heat. “Nnn. See, when ya talk like that, it makes me want ya more.”   
  
“Is that so?” Sideswipe looked down with a smirk. “You got a thing for violence?”   
  
Ricochet rolled onto his front, completely blanketing Sideswipe's lower half. His head rested on Sideswipe's hip. “I got a thing for you.”   
  
Sideswipe rested his hands behind his head. “Oh? That sounds dangerously close to feelings.”   
  
“Don't get ahead of yourself.” Ricochet pressed a kiss to Sideswipe's abdominal armor. “So are ya leavin' or stayin'? Cause now I have plans for ya.”   
  
Sideswipe licked his lips. “Sunny will be okay without me for a night.”   
  
Ricochet rose to hands and knees, crawling up Sideswipe's frame. “That's the good news I wanted to hear,” he murmured, their faces inches apart.   
  
Sideswipe's hands skimmed down Ricochet's sides, resting around his waist. He grinned.   
  
Besides, Sunstreaker had Dent to look after. He wouldn't even notice that Sideswipe was gone.   
  


~

  
  
Sunstreaker woke up chilled, unexpectedly as he was supposed to be sharing the berth with Sideswipe. It looked like Sideswipe stayed out with his date. That was a first.   
  
Sunstreaker leveraged himself out of the berth and headed for their energon dispensary. He drew himself a cube and filled a pouch for Dent.   
  
That was, hoping Dent had stayed. Sunstreaker wasn't sure why it mattered to him. It just did.   
  
It was still early. He assumed Sideswipe would be staggering home soon. He'd better. Sunstreaker wasn't going to open the cafe on his own. That was Sideswipe's pet project.   
  
Sunstreaker rapped his knuckles on the door before keying it open. He sighed when he saw that Dent wasn't on the berth. He should have known. He almost turned to leave when he spot the glow of dim biolights in the dark.   
  
Under the berth.   
  
That should have been his first guess. He and Sideswipe had lived on the street once upon a time. It was always a matter of safety over comfort.   
  
Sunstreaker cycled his vocalizer. “Dent?”   
  
The shape under the berth stirred. A single optic lit as Dent unfurled.   
  
“Sunstreaker?” Dent eased out from underneath the berth, his plating clamped tightly to his frame, one that was once again dusty. “I apologize. I did not mean to recharge so late.”   
  
Sunstreaker shook his head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” He handed over the pouch. “Recharge okay?”   
  
Dent took the pouch, ducking his head. “Better than usual. Thank you. I will leave soon.”   
  
“I meant what I said. You can stay.”   
  
Dent's pincers tightened on the pouch. “I don't wish to be a burden.”   
  
Sunstreaker leaned a hip against the doorframe. “Then we'll find something for you to do. I mean, we can't pay you, but energon and a berth…? We can do that.”   
  
“Why me?”   
  
Sunstreaker stared at his own energon. “I don't know,” he answered honestly.   
  
Dent's field reached for his, tentative and yearning. His optic glowed brighter.   
  
“Sunny? Hello? Bro?”   
  
Sunstreaker cycled a ventilation and turned away, the moment broken. “In here!”   
  
Sideswipe staggered into view with a lazy grin, his paint visibly scratched and marked with lines of black. His field was a happy mess, his optics bright.   
  
“Someone had a good time,” Sunstreaker commented with an arched orbital ridge. “Who was it?”   
  
Sideswipe brushed at a scrape on his chestplate. “None of your business. You have your pets, I got mine.” He tipped his head toward the door. “C'mon. Let's get that spare before I have to open.”   
  
Sunstreaker squinted at him. His suspiciously good mood and lack of protest was telling.   
  
“That must have been some frag,” Sunstreaker observed.   
  
“No comment,” Sideswipe replied in that sing-song voice Sunstreaker loved to hate. “Now c'mon.”   
  
“What should I do?” Dent asked.   
  
Sunstreaker made a vague gesture to the common area. “Make yourself comfortable. Storage is out back so it shouldn't take us very long.”   
  
“Yes, sir.”   
  
Sunstreaker flinched, but Sideswipe was bouncing on his heelstruts impatiently. Sunstreaker would address that later.   
  
Sunstreaker joined Sideswipe at the door and followed him out back, to the triple-locked building they used for storage, supplies, and Sideswipe's questionable business arrangements.   
  
“You need a repaint,” Sunstreaker said as he waited for Sideswipe to input the code.   
  
“So does your pet.”   
  
“Sides,” Sunstreaker growled.   
  
“I know, I know.” The door clattered open and Sideswipe flicked at a scratch in his arm. “These're badges of pride, not flaws, bro.”   
  
Sunstreaker pushed past him, wrinkling his nasal ridge as he caught a whiff of ozone. “You also stink.”  
  
“Multiple overloads will do that to you. Maybe if you got out sometime, you'd know.”   
  
“No thanks.” He edged past crates of unmarked content to the fold up berth in the back. “I have standards.”   
  
“Ouch. Right in the spark.” Sideswipe slid to the other side of the berth. “You sure you want this? You and Dent could just double up.” He winked.   
  
Sunstreaker groaned. “Just pick up your end.” He hated when Sideswipe was pleasure drunk. It made him ten times more obnoxious.   
  
Sideswipe laughed but, luckily, didn't push it. Together, they lifted the berth out of the storeroom, narrowly missing a barrel of unknown content. Sunstreaker preferred that he didn't know, to be honest. Plausible deniability.   
  
They wrestled the spare berth into the small room where Sunstreaker kept his art supplies and the canvasses that disappointed him. It would be cramped, but better than the streets Sunstreaker reasoned.   
  
“Still don't know why you're going to all this trouble for an Empura,” Sideswipe grumbled.   
  
Sunstreaker ignored him. Besides, he couldn't explain it anyway.  
  
They returned to the common room, Sideswipe diverting to grab a cube of energon.   
  
Sunstreaker drew to a surprised halt, cycling his optics in disbelief. Dent had cleaned, neatening up the clutter Sideswipe was prone to throw about, and gathering the trash. Even now, he had a dust rag in pincer and was carefully wiping Sunstreaker's first and last attempt at sculpting.  
  
“Oh, look,” Sideswipe said as he swaggered in. “We've got a housemech.”   
  
Sunstreaker elbowed him in the side, and took great delight in Sideswipe's grunt of pain. Sideswipe gave him a sour look, but Sunstreaker ignored him. He was being an aft and Sunstreaker wanted him to know it.   
  
“I was trying to help,” Dent said quietly, the nubs on his upper back twitching.   
  
“You're definitely doing that.” Sunstreaker looked around the room, surprised that not only was it clean, but Dent had alphabetized their collection of datatrax. “You did a good job.”   
  
The Empura ducked his head and tucked his hands back at his side. “I am grateful,” he said, words sounding carefully chosen. “You are kind.”   
  
Sunstreaker shifted his weight. No matter how often Dent said it, Sunstreaker couldn't quite accept the compliment gracefully.  
  
“I'm not,” he muttered and swept a hand over his head. “So, yeah. You can clean and then you'll have earned your berth and energon, okay? No more of this talk of leaving.”   
  
Dent nodded. “Yes, sir.”   
  
“And don't call me that either.” Sunstreaker's back armor shuffled. “I'm Sunstreaker.”   
  
“Or Sunny if you're feelin' brave,” Sideswipe said with a snicker. He draped himself against Sunstreaker's side, braced on Sunstreaker's shoulder. “You can call me Sideswipe though.”   
  
Sunstreaker curled his lip and ducked out from under Sideswipe's weight, taking great enjoyment in his brother's yelp as he fought to catch his balance.   
  
“Very well,” Dent said, something in the gleam of his optic suggesting a smile. “Thank you for your hospitality.”   
  
Sunstreaker couldn't help but return his smile. “You're welcome.”   
  


****


	2. Chapter 2

No more was said about Dent leaving. Well, nothing save a few grumbles from Sideswipe when he thought no one was listening.  
  
Sunstreaker, however, had tuned him out.  
  
Dent, by all accounts, was a better roommate than Sideswipe. He cleaned after himself. He was quiet. He never presumed. He was grateful for the washrack, for the energon. He let Sunstreaker fuss over him.  
  
He fit right into their home. He even helped Sunstreaker with the clean up when the bar was closed.  
  
As far as Sunstreaker was concerned, Dent had more than earned his place. Not to mention, he hadn't once tried to harm them. So Sideswipe's worries about how dangerous he could be were for naught.  
  
Dent stayed. Dent belonged. He was most welcome company for all the evenings Sideswipe had one of his… guests.  
  
Sunstreaker flopped on the small futon, groping around for the remote in between the cushions where Sides was apt to shove it. Fatigue tugged at every strut, every cable. But he didn't want to climb into his berth alone, and Sideswipe was out with whatever pretty thing had caught his optic this week.  
  
Watching vids until Sunstreaker dropped out was the next, best thing.  
  
The vidscreen clicked on to some game show, the kind that Sideswipe liked to watch and guess along with. Sunstreaker frowned, quickly changing the channel before he got sucked into another night of long reruns.  
  
Something moved in his peripheral vision.  
  
Sunstreaker turned his head, catching sight of Dent creeping past him. As much as the Empura could sneak anyway. He had an odd habit of clacking when he walked.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
Dent froze. His pincers clicked together. "I finished the washrack."  
  
"And?"  
  
"I should--"  
  
"--Join me? Great idea." Sunstreaker patted the empty space beside him. "You're not a servant."  
  
Dent's optic flickered. "I don't wish to presume."  
  
"It's an invitation. I mean, I know it'll be cramped, but we'll both fit."  
  
Dent visibly hesitated, before he bobbed his head. "Thank you," he murmured and gingerly eased into the small space beside Sunstreaker. His field reached out, as tentative as his decision to sit down.  
  
"You live here, too." Sunstreaker shrugged and aimlessly clicked through the channels. "Do you have any preferences?"  
  
"No."  
  
Dent perched on the cushion stiffly, his single optic locked on the screen. The nubs on his back twitched. Maybe he'd relax after Sunstreaker put something on. He still crept around the apartment like he was trying not to be noticed.  
  
Sideswipe's fault really. Hmph.  
  
Sunstreaker cycled a vent and tried to focus on the screen. "Thanks," he said, offhand once he'd decided on an action flick, one he'd seen about a thousand times. "I, um, didn't want to be alone tonight."  
  
Dent's head tilted. "Why?"  
  
Sunstreaker worked his jaw. "It's complicated." His free hand scrubbed down his face. "I don't want to talk about it."  
  
"I apologize."  
  
"It's not your fault." Sunstreaker's lips curved in a thin smile. "Thanks for the company anyway."  
  
Dent didn't have a face, not really, but something in the way he tilted his head suggested a smile of his own.  
  
Spark unexpectedly fluttering, Sunstreaker turned to the film as a distraction. With Dent next to him, the warmth and noise of his frame, he finally felt at ease.

 

 

~

  
  
_"Prowl!"  
  
Sunstreaker's face heated with embarrassment, which might have been the magnesium coating on the oilcake considering how embarrassing the situation was already.  
  
Prowl's grip on his hands only tightened with determination. "It is a simple dance. Allow me to show you."  
  
"What for?" It wasn't like Sunstreaker was ever going to a formal event. They didn't have those on the edge of the Wastes.  
  
Prowl squeezed his fingers and pulled him closer. "So that I might dance with you." He pressed their foreheads together, voice soft and coaxing. "Please?"  
  
That was an unfair tactic. It caused the last bit of Sunstreaker's irritation to melt away, taking his scowl with it.  
  
"There's no one else here though," Sunstreaker grumbled.  
  
"There doesn't need to be. You like the music, yes? That is enough."  
  
Prowl straightened and slid one arm around Sunstreaker's waist, his fingers teasing the transformation seams in Sunstreaker's back. His other hand clasped Sunstreaker's as their chestplates pressed together. Sunstreaker's spark skipped an oscillation.  
  
"Lucky you are not Praxian," Prowl said with a laugh. "Else we never would have fit."  
  
"This isn't a Praxian dance?" Sunstreaker asked as his free hand lingered nowhere. He didn't know where he was supposed to put it.  
  
Prowl shook his head as he guided Sunstreaker's hand to his shoulder. "No. I learned this in Iacon. Flat chested data clerks are popular there. Now, follow my lead."  
  
Sunstreaker immediately tensed though Prowl pulled him into the first step. He stumbled and almost tripped Prowl as a result. Luckily, Prowl was more graceful than he and quickly corrected, tightening his grip on Sunstreaker's hand and pressing in on Sunstreaker's backstrut. Their frames came flush together, plating to plating, heat to heat.  
Sunstreaker's spark throbbed again. He tilted his head a fraction, looking up into Prowl's optics.  
  
"Sorry," he muttered, feeling the heat gathering in his faceplate. "I'm clumsy."  
  
Prowl's field nudged against his. "You will learn." He tipped his face closer, their lips tantalizingly close. "You're handsome when you're flustered."  
  
"Pfft. I'm always handsome."  
  
Prowl chuckled. "And modest, too."  
  
Prowl's lips descended over his, their mouths slanting together. His glossa swept inside, gently claiming.  
  
Sunstreaker moaned, his vents quickening. Arousal rose up in him, slow and sure, to the beat of Prowl's field and the quiet beat of the music. Prowl's lips moved against as though savoring, his engine purring and vibrating through Sunstreaker's frame.  
  
They less danced to the music as they swayed, not that it mattered anymore. Sunstreaker didn't care about learning to dance. He cared about feeling that happy cant in Prowl's field.  
  
Prowl's lips grazed over his again, a bare brush of warmth. Heat flooded Sunstreaker's frame, sending a tingle straight to his core. It was the kind of moment he hoped would last forever, the kind he never thought he'd get here on the edge of Uraya, staring off into the Waste._

 

 

~

  
  
Sunstreaker onlined slowly, swimming to consciousness as he sensed something warm ruched up against him. A quietly purring engine sent soft vibrations through his frame. He was comfortable, at ease, like he hadn't been in the months since Prowl left.  
  
Sunstreaker nuzzled into the warmth, smelling expensive wax and something else familiar, though in his fuzzy state, he couldn't remember from where. He made a happy noise, remembering the last time he woke like this. He listened to the steady beat of his berthmate's spark, counting the oscillations of it.  
  
The frame beneath him shifted with a tangible shiver. There was a brush of a touch to his cheek, gentle and tentative.  
  
"Sunstreaker?"  
  
He went still. His hand slid down the chestplate beneath his cheek, fingers skimming over the thick weld down the central seam.  
  
... Dent.  
  
Mortification stole Sunstreaker's spark. He bolted upright, catching Dent's single opticked gaze.  
  
"Slag!" Sunstreaker put some distance between them as way of apology. "I'm sorry."  
  
"There is no need to apologize." Dent pulled into himself, armor clamping tight to his protoform. "I do not mind."  
  
Sunstreaker shook his head. "No, it was rude of me. That's not, I mean, you're not here for that." He shoved to his feet. "Thank you for the company, but I have to go."  
  
Sunstreaker didn't wait for Dent to say anything else, only hurried to make himself scarce. Thank Primus Sideswipe hadn't seen that. He would have never let Sunstreaker live it down.  
  
Sunstreaker cycled an anxious ventilation and threw himself into his berthroom, his spark pounding in his chassis. There was a tightness in his intake, a weight on his spark. The door closed behind him and Sunstreaker sank against it.  
  
He offlined his optics, tilting his helm back against the door.  
  
He couldn't be so lonely that he'd allowed himself to cuddle with an Empura, with Dent. More than that, he couldn't get attached. He should have learned his lesson.  
  
Heat gathered at his optics. Static formed in his vocalizer. Sunstreaker cycled another ventilation, but the shudders that stole through his frame would not abate.  
  
_Prowl's gone. He left._ Sunstreaker didn't need Sideswipe to remind him. It was getting close to a year now.  
  
Sunstreaker shouldn't care anymore. It shouldn't hurt. It shouldn't…  
  
His knees wobbled. He sank down to the floor, spark flickering madly. His hands pulled into fists. He ached.  
  
It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.  
  
Sunstreaker should have never tried. He's a guttermech from the edge of Wastes. He should have never fragging tried.

 

 

~

  
  
It was crowded, bright, and noisy in here. Sideswipe could barely hear himself think, much less hear Ricochet talk.  
  
He was having a great time. Or was that the engex talking? The sickly sweet sludge Ricochet kept buying and Sideswipe kept tossing back by the gallon.  
  
Or maybe he just liked the way it tasted on Ricochet's lips. Especially when Sideswipe backed his dance partner into a corner and sealed their mouths together. Their glossa entangled, Ricochet giving as good as he got.  
  
Those kisses were hot and hungry. Sideswipe's hands explored sleek black armor, finding and exploiting exposed seams. His fingers danced across the hidden cables, playing with the charge that gathered there.  
  
Ricochet ran hot, his vents gusting heat against Sideswipe's frame, his fans spinning so fast as to vibrate his armor. Or maybe that was the bass from the music. Charge nipped at Sideswipe's fingertips.  
  
Sideswipe moaned into the kiss, working a knee between Ricochet's legs. Hands landed on Sideswipe's hips, yanking him into a long, lingering grind. Metal ground on metal, slick with condensation.  
  
Sideswipe shuddered as charge snapped through his neural net. His spark pulsed a happy beat, desire sparking in his lines. He buried his fingers in a hip joint, curled around a bundle of cabling, and pulled.  
  
Ricochet gasped. His back arched, pressing his chest against Sideswipe's. He rolled his hips, riding Sideswipe's thigh. His mouth was still sweet, just like the engex. His denta nipped at Sideswipe's lips.  
  
The music only encouraged Sideswipe. He panted for a ventilation as he worked his way to Ricochet's intake, getting a mouthful of shiny cables and biting down.  
  
Ricochet cried out, his entire frame shuddering. “Primus!”  
  
“That's not my name,” Sideswipe teased against Ricochet's intake, parting out one cable to lick the diameter of it. He bit down, just enough to tease.  
  
Ricochet arched against him, one hand hooking in Sideswipes' chestplate and hanging tight. “Sides!”  
  
“Better,” Sideswipe purred, pinning Ricochet harder against the wall. He wanted to take him here and now, whilst listening to Ricochet's sweet sounds of pleasure.  
  
He nibbled his way up to Ricochet's audial, his processor spinning. “Let's go,” Sideswipe murmured, curling his glossa around the sensitive metal.  
  
Ricochet rocked against him. “Night's just started.”  
  
“I know.” Sideswipe ex-vented hotly. “But I can't make you scream here.”  
  
“Oh?” Another gasp escaped Ricochet as Sideswipe nibbled on his audial.  
  
His fingers stroked at hidden lines. “I can stay late if I wanna,” Sideswipe said.  
  
Ricochet made a noise deep in his intake. “Thought you couldn't – ah! – couldn't leave your brother.”  
  
Sideswipe gripped Ricochet's hip, holding him still for a long and satisfying grind, charge building to a crescendo beneath his armor. “He's got Dent. He'll be fine.”  
  
Ricochet sounded confused. “The Empura?”  
  
“Yeah.” Sideswipe dragged his mouth back to Ricochet's, sealing their lips together for another deep kiss. He moaned as his spark pulsed. “So. Want to go?”  
  
“Frag, yeah.” Ricochet smirked and shoved Sideswipe back with both hands.  
  
Sideswipe stumbled, grinning like an idiot, but Ricochet was there again in a blink, grabbing Sideswipe's hand and pulling him toward the nearest exit.  
  
Maybe there was some benefit to having the Empura around after all.

 

 

~

  
  
There were days when his fingers didn't work. When he couldn't remember how to draw a circle or how to blend colors.  
  
Those were the frustrating days, when he had a mental image, but lacked the skill to duplicate it.  
  
And then there were the days where everything was effortless. Lines danced onto the page, and colors poured from his fingertips. The joy of it gleamed on the canvas.  
  
Those days, Sunstreaker felt well and truly alive. They'd been in short supply lately, after Prowl left, but today…. Today was a different day.  
  
For once, Sunstreaker didn't even mind that he had an audience, though to be fair, Dent was the ideal observer. He was quiet and didn't interrupt, nor did he ask dozens of bothersome questions.  
  
“It's a landscape,” Sunstreaker murmured, though perhaps it was fairly obvious. “In case you were wondering.”  
  
“You are very talented.”  
  
Sunstreaker's face heated. “Thank you.”  
  
“And yet, you are sad?”  
  
Sunstreaker's brush wavered, tip hovering away from the canvas. Dent sat just outside of his peripheral vision. “… Yes.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
He forced himself to keep going, to sweep a new streak of pale violet across the skyline. “I miss someone,” Sunstreaker admitted. “He left and I...” He trailed off to cycle a ventilation. “I'm still learning to live with it.”  
  
“He is coming back?”  
  
Sunstreaker worked his intake. “No.”  
  
“I am sorry.”  
  
Sunstreaker wiped off the brush, opting to shift to another color, he wasn't sure which. “It's my fault really. Thinking I could have something for myself. I should've known better.”  
  
Dent's chair creaked. Movement in his peripheries was all the warning Sunstreaker had before Dent knelt beside him, pincer resting on the bin of assorted colors.  
  
“You are kind,” Dent said, his optic bright as he met Sunstreaker's gaze. “You deserve more.”  
  
Sunstreaker's lips curved. “Thank you for saying so.” He selected a night blue, one speckled with metallic shavings. “Circumstances don't really work like that, but I appreciate the sentiment, you know.”  
  
Dent rose to his full height, which equaled Sunstreaker's. “Maybe the future will be different,” he said and then twisted his pincers together. “I should get to work. May I watch you later?”  
  
“Of course. You're always welcome.”  
  
Dent bobbed his head and then he was gone, off to wipe the tables in the cafe. He always worked without complaint, even when Sideswipe teased him, and if he sometimes slipped some of his energon pouches to other Empuras in the near-alleys, Sunstreaker pretended he hadn't noticed.  
  
It was a nice sentiment, though, wasn't it? To be worthy of something better than abandonment.  
  
Pity Prowl hadn't thought so.  
  
Sunstreaker sighed and followed Dent's example. He got back to work.

 

 

~

  
  
Ricochet laughed as he dodged Sideswipe's fist, dancing out of the way with a pirouette and an easy shift of his weight. “Yer gettin' slower,” he taunted.  
  
Sideswipe panted a ventilation, resisting the urge to roll his optics. “You're just unnaturally fast,” he snapped and lunged again.  
  
Ricochet slid to the side, ducked under his arm, and ended up behind Sideswipe all in a blink. “Nah, mech. It's called talent. Mebbe ya should get some.”  
  
Sideswipe huffed and spun, his optics widening as he threw up his arms, barely defending against the kick Ricochet had aimed at his chestplate. He caught the other mech's foot between his hands, fingers wrapped around Ricochet's ankle.  
  
“That's the second time you've tried that,” Sideswipe said, trying to sound confident, though condensation slicked his armor and his cooling fans spun madly. “Did you think I wouldn't learn from the first one?”  
  
Ricochet half-lit his visor. “I dunno. Didja?” he asked and abruptly threw himself backward, weight shifting to his hands, other foot rising up.  
  
Sideswipe let him go and stumbled backward, a millisecond before Ricochet's other foot would have slammed into the side of his head. Primus on a pogostick but Ricochet sometimes forgot this was supposed to be fun!  
  
“Okay, okay. Enough!” Sideswipe panted, throwing up his hands to end the session. “I think I've got more than enough dents to make Sunstreaker fuss at me.”  
  
Ricochet chuckled and bounced back upright. He rolled his shoulders, confidence pouring over him in waves. “Awww, it's just cause he cares.”  
  
“Yeah, I know.” Sideswipe rubbed at his shoulder, where a good kick from earlier had landed a bit too hard for a sparring session. “How'd you get so good anyway? You didn't learn that on the streets.” Unlike Sideswipe, whose battle style consisted mostly of brawling. He and Sunstreaker were heavy-hitters, they never bothered with finesse.  
  
Ricochet strutted toward him, his cooling fans not even spinning. “That's my secret ta keep and not yers to know,” he said with another wink.  
  
Yeah. Sideswipe should have guessed as much.  
  
“Then when are ya gonna teach me?” Sideswipe asked with what he hoped was a charming grin. “I could use moves like that in the Arena.”  
  
“Mmm. I don't think I can. You're a little too… bulky for that kind of thing.” Ricochet sidled in close, one arm slipping around Sideswipe's waist as he rose on the tips of his pedes. “Don't worry though. I like my mechs with a little weight to him.” He pressed a quick kiss to Sideswipe's chin.  
  
Sideswipe squinted even as he dropped his hand to Ricochet's hip before sliding it around to his aft. “Are you insulting my size?”  
  
“I would never,” Ricochet purred and rose the last inch, his lips brushing over Sideswipe's. “Wanna share a rinse with me?”  
  
Sideswipe captured his lips before Ricochet could pull away, his glossa claiming Ricochet's mouth and pulling a delightful purr from Ricochet's intake. Sideswipe groped Ricochet's aft, feeling the other mech shiver against him. His field rose up, heated and hungry.  
  
Ricochet chuckled against his lips. “I'll take that as a yes.”  
  
“Frag, yeah.” Sideswipe threw his other arm around Ricochet, crushing the mech against him, and deepening the kiss. Arousal thrummed through his frame, charge already gathering beneath his armor.  
  
Maybe they'd make it to the washracks. Maybe not. Seemed to Sideswipe they could do just fine here on the training mat.  
  
Either way, he intended to have a good time.

 

 

~

  
  
In the weeks since Dent came to live with them, his dexterity had improved by leaps and bounds. He'd gained a confidence as well, one that lent itself to trying new things. Such as when Sunstreaker caught him practicing with a stylus last week. He'd been so focused on his self-appointed task, he hadn't noticed Sunstreaker watching him.  
  
Nor did he notice now.  
  
Sunstreaker came out of the prep room, a favor for Sideswipe to check on the progress of a batch of engex. Dent sat at the table in the main room, concentrating on a learner's datapad. The stylus was carefully pinned in his pincers.  
  
Sunstreaker was at once struck with an idea.  
  
“You're doing great,” Sunstreaker said.  
  
Dent startled. The stylus flew out of his grasp and clattered to the floor. The datapad nearly followed until Dent slammed a pincer atop it.  
  
“I apologize, sir,” Dent said, his energy field flaring. “I know I should be cleaning.”  
  
Sunstreaker bent over to pick up the stylus. “Don't call me that. Besides, you work hard as it is.” He set the stylus on the table. “A break is only fair.”  
  
Dent's armor rustled. “I do not wish to dally in the face of your generosity.”  
  
“You're not.” Sunstreaker leaned against the table and peered at the contents of the datapad.  
  
The glyphs were a bit wobbly, but it was readable.  
  
“You know, you might find painting easier,” Sunstreaker commented. “There aren't any rules or expectations.”  
  
Dent blinked his optic. “Oh, but I--”  
  
“I'll teach you,” Sunstreaker offered, cutting off the protest. “It might even be fun.”  
  
“I would not be a bother?”  
  
“Never.”  
  
Dent eased down from the table. “Then I would be honored to have your instruction.”  
  
Sunstreaker chuckled. “It's not as grand as all that. I'm no one special.”  
  
A hand rested on his forearm. “You are kind,” Dent said, as he always did.  
  
It shouldn't have made Sunstreaker's face heat, or his spark flutter. And yet, it did. He ducked his head.  
  
“We'll see if you say that after my lessons,” he said instead and tilted his head toward his studio. “Come on, we can start now.”  
  
“All right.” Dent followed with something like eagerness, their shoulders occasionally brushing. “Thank you.”  
  
Sunstreaker gave him a soft smile. “You're welcome.”  
  
He would never admit aloud, and certainly not to Sideswipe, but he was still glad he'd asked Dent to live with them. The Empura filled a void Sunstreaker hated to endure.  
  
He hadn't forgotten about Prowl. But it was nice to have someone else there. It was nice to not be alone, if only for a little while.  
  
It was just nice.

 

 

~

  
  
“You’re going out a lot more than usual.”  
  
Sideswipe froze on his way out the door. He turned slowly and found Sunstreaker frowning at him, not in disapproval, but curious confusion.  
  
“Awww, do you miss me?” Sideswipe asked, planting a cheesy grin on his face. He threw his arms in the air and started toward Sunstreaker, intending to hug him.  
  
Sunstreaker sidestepped and avoided it, folding his arms over his chestplate. “You didn’t use to go out this much. Do you even sleep in your room any more?”  
  
Sideswipe dropped his arms. “More often than not.” He tried to play it off with a shrug, his spark throbbing faster. He didn’t want or need Sunny asking questions. He wasn’t ready to explain Ricochet. “Why does it even matter? You never cared before.”  
  
“I always cared.” Sunstreaker’s frown deepened, and now his shoulders hunched, his optics dimming. “You never even say where you’re going. For all I know, you might not come back one day.”  
  
Oh.  
  
_Oh._  
  
Sideswipe dropped all semblance of teasing and wrapped Sunstreaker in an embrace before his brother could protest. He folded his arms around his twin, pressed their chestplates together, until he could feel the echoes of Sunstreaker’s spark pulse.  
  
“That’s not going to happen,” Sideswipe said firmly, and yes, Sunstreaker was trembling. It was minute, and Sideswipe wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t hugged him. “I’m not leaving, okay? Nothing in this universe would keep me from coming back to you.”  
  
Sunstreaker stiffened in his arms, field withdrawn and tense, until he softened by minor degrees. “Maybe it won’t be your choice,” he said, voice so small that it made Sideswipe ache. “Some Empty will attack you in an alley, or some thief will stab you in the back, and I won’t ever know.”  
  
Sideswipe chuckled. “I’m not that easy to kill.”  
  
Sunstreaker didn’t reply, but he did return the embrace, holding Sideswipe tighter than he could have hoped. Sure, they fought and argued a lot, but when it came down to it, Sunstreaker was his brother, the other half of his spark, the mech in the world he loved before all others.  
  
“Do you want me to stay home from now on?” Sideswipe asked softly. Ricochet wouldn’t like it, but he’d get over it.  
  
Sunstreaker snorted. “I’m not a sparkling, Sideswipe. I don’t need you to look after me.”  
  
The tightness of his embrace would suggest otherwise, but Sideswipe didn’t point that out. “Then what do you want?”  
  
“Nothing.” Sunstreaker sighed and twitched. “Lemme go, Sides. Or you’re going to be late for whatever pretty thing is waiting for you.”  
  
Sideswipe squeezed Sunstreaker again and released him, only to cup his hands around his brother’s head and pull their foreheads together. “I promise to be careful and always come back, okay?”  
  
Sunstreaker’s hands closed into fists at his side. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”  
  
“Just the ones I’ll try really, really hard for,” Sideswipe retorted and pressed a kiss to Sunstreaker’s forehead. “Don’t wait up.”  
  
“I never do.”  
  
Sunstreaker’s maelstrom of emotion followed Sideswipe out the door, through Uraya, and to the crowded, dump of a bar where he’d agreed to meet Ricochet. Someday, maybe they’d actually do more than meet at a bar, get overcharged, share a seedy hotel berth, and part ways come the morning.  
  
“What’s that look for?” Ricochet asked as he pushed off the bar’s wall, his visor gleaming at Sideswipe.  
  
He shook his head. “Nothing.”  
  
“Liar.” Ricochet grinned as he grabbed Sideswipe about the waist and peered up at him. “That’s the look you always get when your brother’s done somethin’.”  
  
Sideswipe arched an orbital ridge. “You think you know me that well, huh?”  
  
“I do.” Ricochet’s hands slid down, brushing over Sideswipe’s aft. Not much for shame in public, that one. “So what gives?”  
  
“Nothing important. Just asking questions is all.”  
  
“Mm.” Ricochet pressed their frames together, his purring engine sending vibrations through Sideswipe’s frame. “Maybe it’s time ya come clean then.”  
  
Sideswipe shook his head firmly. “No. Sunny wouldn’t understand.”  
  
“Mebbe ya should try.”  
  
“And maybe, we should get our afts in there before all the good stuff gets drank, hm?” Sideswipe asked with a wink.  
  
Ricochet chuckled and patted Sideswipe’s aft. “Whatever you want.”

 

 

~

  
  
Sunstreaker cursed and chucked his stylus at the wall. It made a very disappointing noise as it struck, and then clattered to the floor. His ire ticked upward into another notch.  
  
He aggressively shut down his sketchpad, for once not caring if he’d saved or not, and shoved the pad onto a nearby table. His mind was in tatters, his focus in the next galaxy, and nothing worked right, not his fingers, not the stylus, not the image in his processor.  
  
It was all Sideswipe’s fault.  
  
“Sunstreaker?”  
  
His ventilations were too rapid for his comfort. Sunstreaker forced them to even as he shoved off the futon and turned toward the doorway. Dent stood there, his optic dim, his head tilted as though in concern.  
  
“Are you all right?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Sunstreaker snapped, and then hated himself for doing so. Dent did not deserve his wrath. He huffed and lowered his head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”  
  
“Then you are not fine?”  
  
Sunstreaker swept a hand over his head. “I’m just annoyed. Upset. It’ll pass.” He cycled another ventilation, trying to calm himself, before he looked at Dent again. “What are you working on?”  
  
Dent’s pincers clicked. “Cleaning Sideswipe’s room.”

Sunstreaker blinked. “What? Why?”

“He requested that I do so.”

Sunstreaker revved his engine, sending unkind thoughts in his idiot brother’s direction. “He _would_. Aft,” he muttered and shook his head. “You don’t have to do that, Dent. It’s his mess. Make him clean it.”

Dent’s single yellow optic dimmed. “But I must earn my keep.”

Sunstreaker growled softly. Sideswipe was the one who kept insisting on such things. He’d stopped dismissing Dent outwardly, but he still referred to the Empura as though he was an unwanted pet.

“Ignore him. Sideswipe’s just being an aft. Come sit with me instead.” He made a vague gesture toward the futon behind him, but Dent visibly hesitated, starting forward, only to draw back and return to the doorway. “Unless you don’t want to?”

“No, I’d like that.” Dent’s plating twitched as though he couldn’t decide if he were comfortable or not, before he stepped into the common room. “He will be angry.”

Sunstreaker waved off the concern. “You let me worry about my brother. We could, uh...” He turned around in a slow circle, trying to find some inspiration, his gaze landing on Sideswipe’s console. “I don’t know, play a game or something?” Even as he made the suggestion, Sunstreaker cringed.

He had little interest in that noisy, destructive game Sideswipe favored.

Dent perched on the corner of the futon, as he always did, like he didn’t want to take up too much space. “I do not think I am suited,” he said, tone apologetic when he held up his claws to demonstrate.

“Oh. Good point.” Sunstreaker’s cheeks heated and he coughed a ventilation. “Um.”  
  
“Would you read to me?”  
  
Sunstreaker cycled his optics as he looked at the Empura. “Huh?”  
  
“I found this.” Dent fumbled in his subspace and produced a datapad. “But I am unfamiliar with the dialect.”  
  
Sunstreaker took the datapad and flicked it on. He immediately scowled. This was one of Sideswipe’s trashy romance novels. There was virtually no substance to it, and was filled with cardboard cutouts called characters, and was so unrealistic as to be ridiculous.  
  
Yet, Sideswipe owned dozens of them, devouring them almost the moment he indulged in buying them, not that he’d ever admit it.  
  
And yeah, okay, Sunstreaker had read a few himself. He’d even liked them.  
  
“This is a romance,” he said, baffled.  
  
Dent stared back at him evenly. “Is that bad?”  
  
“No. I just…” Sunstreaker flopped down onto the futon, making it shake. He peered at Dent. “You really wanna hear me read this?”  
  
Dent inclined his head. “Very much so.”  
  
Sunstreaker fiddled with the datapad. Dent rarely, if ever, asked for anything. And though he wasn’t at all interested in hearing himself read the overly purple prose, he couldn’t deny Dent either. Not if it brought that subtly happy cant to the Empura’s field.  
  
“All right,” Sunstreaker said with a shrug. He settled back into the futon. “Get comfortable. But you’re not allowed to tease me if it sounds stupid.”  
  
“I would never,” Dent assured him and actually sat back in the futon, making himself comfortable, at home, like he belonged. Which he most surely did.  
  
No matter what Sideswipe said.

 

 

~

  
  
Sideswipe hummed softly, off-beat and out of tune, but there was no one around to hear him, so it didn’t matter. The quiet of the room wrapped around him, along with the hum of his equipment chugging along. His hands worked busily, but his processor wandered, while his spark felt light. His frame carried the dull ache of many good overloads.  
  
“What’re ya doin’?” Ricochet’s recharge-heavy vocals broke the quiet. “Why’re ya up so early?”  
  
It barely counted as morning. He’d been hard at work for an hour, making the pretty, sweet energon candies that were Ricochet’s favorite.  
  
Sideswipe tossed a grin over his shoulder at Ricochet who was finally rising from the temporary berth they’d rented. “Making you a surprise.”  
  
Ricochet climbed out of the berth, padding silently across the floor to join Sideswipe. He leaned in around Sideswipe and peered at the tiny machine whirring away, and near it, a small table with a full tray.  
  
“Whoa,” Ricochet said, looking up at Sideswipe. “You made these?”  
  
“Yep.” Sideswipe plucked a purple one from the top of the stack and held it to Ricochet’s lips. “Here.”  
  
Ricochet took it with his denta, his lips brushing Sideswipe’s fingertips. His visor brightened, field filling with delight, as he started to chew.  
  
“These taste just like the ones at your bar,” he said.  
  
Sideswipe laughed. “Duh. I make those, too.”  
  
“I thought Sun--”  
  
“What? He’s not the only one with some art talent,” Sideswipe interjected, more than a little indignant. Okay, sure, he didn’t paint or sculpt or make gorgeous things like Sunstreaker did, but he still had talents of his own!  
  
Ricochet nudged him with a shoulder, his field warm where it entwined with the edges of Sideswipe’s own. “So I see.” His glossa flicked over his lips. “Are they all for me?”  
  
Sideswipe offered him another, this one bright blue and speckled with glitter. “Yep.”  
  
Lips enclosed around his fingers, glossa flicking across the tips, before the warmth of Ricochet’s mouth retreated, taking the candy with it. “Mmm,” he purred. “I feel spoiled.”  
  
Sideswipe grinned. “I should’ve used these to seduce you sooner.” He fed Ricochet another, stroking Ricochet’s lips with his fingers as he did so.  
  
Ricochet shivered and pressed closer to him, the gentle snap of charge tickling Sideswipe’s armor. “Good in berth and with chemistry. What a treasure I’ve found.”  
  
“Thought I found you first.” Sideswipe flicked off the machine with one hand and fed Ricochet another candy with the other.  
  
His ventilations hitched as Ricochet captured and kept his finger. He pressed it between his denta and sucked on it. Arousal wound through Sideswipe’s lines, slow and lazy.  
  
“Semantics,” Ricochet said around his mouthful. He bit the tip of Sideswipe’s finger. “Ya done yet? I feel a need to show my appreciation.”  
  
Sideswipe’s lines throbbed with arousal. “Give me five minutes.”  
  
“Deal.” Ricochet freed Sideswipe’s finger with a pop. “But you better bring the candies.”  
  
Sideswipe’s grin was so bright that it hurt.

 

 

~

  
  
There wasn’t much in the way of culture to be found in Uraya. What little there was, however, Sunstreaker had seen so many times, he’d memorized them. Nothing inspired him anymore. He longed to leave Uraya, to see other cities and beautiful things.  
  
Dent, however, had seen nothing beyond the reach of the Wastes. To be fair, most residents of Uraya disdained the Empuras and barred them from setting foot in their establishments. Sunstreaker’s glare made anyone who began to protest think twice. Dent had paid his admittance fee; he deserved to be here as much as anyone else.  
  
“Do you like it?” Sunstreaker asked as they walked through Uraya’s version of a crystal garden.  
  
It was a poor facsimile of the grand ones that Sunstreaker had seen vids of in Praxus and Crystal City, but it was better than nothing. It barely filled an acre, and contained wildly spawned crystal growths, colors clashing and minerals freely mingling. There was a beauty in the wildness, however, and sometimes the chaos gave Sunstreaker a new perspective.  
  
“It is very interesting,” Dent said. He kept close to Sunstreaker, his armor drawn tight. His shoulders remained hunched, as though in defense of a blow that might arrive at any moment.  
  
Sunstreaker arched an orbital ridge. “I’m sensing a but.”  
  
Dent’s pincers clicked together, as they often did when he was uneasy. He continued to look around them, on alert for an imagined danger.  
  
“They are pretty,” Dent reiterated, and hung back a little. “But something feels off. I do not know why. It is as though they are wrong somehow.”  
  
Sunstreaker frowned. “Maybe because they are untended?” He shrugged. “I mean, yeah, in other cities they actually plan how the crystals grow. It’s one big art project.” He turned a corner and paused in front of his favorite growth. “I want to see them someday. Especially the Gardens.”  
  
It was a distant hope. An empty one. He often vocalized it, with the internal knowledge that it would never come true. In the same way that Sideswipe talked about how much he wanted to walk the black market of Vos, a place no grounder was allowed to venture. And both of them, together, wanted to stand on the edge of the Sea of Rust. Sunstreaker had heard it was so large that it vanished into the horizon.  
  
“Maybe you will.”  
  
Sunstreaker snorted and shook his head. “It’s a stupid thing to hope for. I’m as stuck here in Uraya as you were in the Wastes.”  
  
Dent tilted his head and gave Sunstreaker a direct look, as he so rarely did. “I am stuck no longer,” he said quietly, his optic gleaming, the same shade as the topaz crystals Sunstreaker favored. “Because of you.”  
  
“That’s different,” Sunstreaker said.  
  
“Not to me.” Dent’s gaze shifted past him, to the haphazardly grown crystals. “Maybe you only need to find a Sunstreaker of your own.”  
  
“Or maybe you’ve been reading too many of Sideswipe’s datapads,” Sunstreaker retorted and then hated himself for getting snappy with Dent. The Empura didn’t know any better.  
  
He cycled a ventilation. Dent didn’t know. He wouldn’t understand. No one was going to come rescue Sunstreaker. He wasn’t a pretty noble locked in a high tower.  
  
This was his life, his functioning, and it was never going to be any better than this.

 

 

~

  
  
“Sides?”  
  
He stirred from his doze, although the effort was half-sparked. “Hm?”  
  
“You ever think about leavin’ Uraya?”  
  
Sideswipe tightened his arms around Ricochet and buried his face in Ricochet’s intake. “What kind of question is that? Course I have.”  
  
“So why don’t you?”  
  
Coherency won of the haze of recharge. Sideswipe’s optics onlined. “Because I can’t.”  
  
Ricochet’s field nudged at his, as though trying to prod Sideswipe further awake. “Why not?”  
  
Sideswipe groaned and rolled away from Ricochet, irritation beginning to replace the lazy beat of satisfaction in his lines. “Me and Sunny don’t have cards,” he answered honestly. “Aside from that, we’re broke.”  
  
According to the government as a whole, he and Sunstreaker didn’t exist. They didn’t have registration cards or spark dates. They didn’t legally exist. Here on the edge of Uraya, it didn’t much matter. No one cared. But out there where a better life waited? It mattered a lot.  
  
If they had credits, it would be a different story. They could just purchase one, in much the same manner their caretakers would have had to do, centuries ago when he and Sunny were sparked. They wouldn’t even have to be sneaky about it.  
  
But credits were as elusive as credibility.  
  
Ricochet’s visor dimly lit the darkness, giving it a pale purple glow. “Ya seem ta be doin’ well enough.”  
  
Sideswipe sat up and scraped a hand down his faceplate. “Less than you think.” Alone, their building rental fee to Starscream took up over half of their monthly income. He peered at his berthmate, engine idling. “What’s with the questions?”  
  
“Curiosity.” Ricochet lifted one shoulder in a shrug.  
  
Sideswipe narrowed his optics. “Right. And why is it you’re here in Uraya again?”  
  
Ricochet grinned and propped his head on his hand. “Starscream pays well.”  
  
“Like frag he does” Sideswipe snorted. “He pays the least he thinks he can get away with. He’s cheap.”  
  
“And I demand the most I’m worth. It works out.” Ricochet winked. “But seriously, would ya leave if ya could?”  
  
“In a sparkbeat.” Sideswipe didn’t have to hesitate. He lowered himself back to the berth, facing Ricochet once more. “Sunny deserves better than this.”  
  
Ricochet wriggled close and threw a leg over Sideswipe’s, his plating warm and buzzing where it pressed to Sideswipe’s own. “And ya don’t?”  
  
“Shh. Recharge time. Gotta get up early,” Sideswipe redirected, offlining his optics, and trying to cycle a few quieting ventilations.  
  
Ricochet draped an arm over him, his fingers teasing along a seam in Sideswipe’s back. “Ya didn’t answer my question.”  
  
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Sideswipe huffed. “Talking impossible hypotheticals. That kinda slag is what gets mechs killed down here. As it is, me and Sunny, we’re only slightly better off than the Empuras.”  
  
Ricochet stroked a soothing pattern down his back. “Ah. Sorry I said somethin’ then. I just think yer way too smart ta be stuck here.”  
  
Sideswipe made a noncommittal noise. “You and me both.” He scooted back down the berth and tucked his face into Ricochet’s intake again. “Can we recharge now?”  
  
His berthmate chuckled. “Yes. My curiosity is satisfied.”  
  
Good. Sideswipe firmly set himself on the path to recharge, shoving aside all the thoughts Ricochet’s questioning had provoked.  
  
There was no point in dreaming of impossibilities. He had no interest in being disappointed.

 

 

~

  
  
From a distance, Sunstreaker could only tell that someone was playing music. As he got closer, he picked out the soft sounds of a ballad. By the time he arrived at the door, Sunstreaker recognized the song.  
  
His spark clenched. Memories cropped up, and for a moment, Sunstreaker let himself indulge in them. He dipped his head, shuttered his optics, and cycled a ventilation.  
  
_“Awww, come on. Not this song again.”  
  
“You say that as though it is not your favorite.”  
  
Sunstreaker scoffed, rolling his optics. “No, it’s yours.”  
  
Prowl smiled at him, soft and gentle. “That is true as well.” He held out a hand, fingers open in offering. “Dance with me?”  
  
“I’ve not gotten any better,” Sunstreaker warned him as he accepted the offer, though heat stole into his face.  
  
Prowl chuckled and drew him close, until their nasal ridges brushed. “Then it is a good thing I do not mind all the extra practice.”_  
  
Sunstreaker onlined his optics, forcing reality back to the forefront.  
  
Prowl? Was not coming back. There was no point in living in the past.  
  
He steadied himself and peered into the common room, unsurprised to find Dent within. The Empura had his back to the door, his attention focused on Sideswipe’s sound system. For once, he looked entirely at ease, his head tilted a fraction and his pincers hanging at his side.  
  
Sunstreaker was struck with an idea. Another way to chase away the ghost of the mech who abandoned him.  
  
“Wanna dance?” Sunstreaker asked as he stepped into the room.  
  
Dent whirled so fast he nearly tripped on his own feet, arms flailing to catch his balance. Sunstreaker rushed across the room, catching him before he could tumble. He smiled as Dent unleashed a startled squeak and clung to him.  
  
“Sorry,” Sunstreaker said, sheepish. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”  
  
Dent’s gaze met his. “I apologize. I was curious about the music. I did not mean to shirk my duties.”  
  
Sunstreaker shook his head. “Listen all you want. It’s fine with me. Besides, at this point, I think you’ve cleaned and polished everything we own.” A small smile tugged at his lips as he leaned his face closer to Dent’s. “You didn’t answer my question though. Wanna dance?”  
  
Dent’s field shivered. “I--”  
  
“Come on. It’ll be fun,” Sunstreaker said, giving Dent’s arms a light squeeze. “I’ll even teach you if you don’t know how.”  
  
Dent’s field went warm and fuzzy. He relaxed in Sunstreaker’s hold, armor easing out of its tight clamp. “You are kind.”  
  
“You say that often enough, I might actually believe you.” Sunstreaker gently steadied Dent so he could stand on his own feet, and then moved to the sound system. The song was almost over so he set it to repeat and returned to Dent, holding out a hand. “Well. You gonna dance with me?”  
  
Dent’s pincers clicked uncertainly. Finally, he lay his claw across Sunstreaker’s palm. “All right.”  
  
“Then follow my lead.”  
  
Sunstreaker grinned and guided Dent’s into position. Though it was a little awkward. Sunstreaker had always let Prowl lead before, and now he attempted to translate the steps so that he could lead.  
  
He held Dent’s claw with careful fingers, guided Dent’s other hand to his shoulder, and then put his own on Dent’s thick waist. The Empura’s armor was warm beneath him, tingling, too.  
  
The music filled the air around them. Sunstreaker listened to it for several seconds, counting the cadence and the steps he’d learned. He bobbed his head to the beat before he swung Dent into the first step, fully expecting the Empura to stumble, perhaps trip over his own feet.  
  
Dent did, indeed, fumble, but he quickly caught himself, and he moved with Sunstreaker into the next step, though behind the count. By the time they’d made a circuit around the common room, Dent followed along well enough that Sunstreaker didn’t have to fear any crushed feet.  
  
“You’ve done this before,” he said, surprised.  
  
Dent looked down at him, his optic glowing softly. “Not that I recall.”  
  
“Maybe in a past life then,” Sunstreaker said with a small smile.  
  
He spun Dent into another turn, the Empura moving with ease. The song seemed to swell around them, and Sunstreaker’s spark beat with it.  
  
Maybe someday Dent would remember who he was. Maybe he’d even try to return to that old life. Sunstreaker didn’t have any right to ask him to stay.  
  
Yet, he still hoped that Dent would.

 

 

*******

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ephdraws did an absolutely LOVELY sketch of Prowl and Sunstreaker dancing. You can find it here: http://ephdraws.tumblr.com/post/155370130187/sketch-gift-of-prowl-and-sunstreaker-waltzing-for


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That there character death and canon-typical violence I warned ye about? Tis in this chapter. Read with caution.

Good things, it seemed, were not meant to last.   
  
Sideswipe didn't bother to knock or announce himself ahead of time. Instead he burst into Sunstreaker's studio with all the grace of a rampaging bulldozer, his field a frenetic swirl that battered at Sunstreaker and stole his concentration.   
  
He startled, sweeping a broad stripe of bright crimson in the middle of his painting where it did not belong. The thick paint immediately started to drip, smearing the image beneath it.   
  
“What the frag!” Sunstreaker shoved his palette and brush down, whipping toward his brother. “You ruined it! What the slag is your--”  
  
Sideswipe shoved a flimsy at him, right under his nasal ridge. “This,” Sideswipe hissed, rattling the flimsy. “He has to go!”   
  
Sunstreaker snatched it from him, frown growing. “What are you talking about?” he demanded even as his gaze turned to the flimsy, skimming it quickly.   
  
… Oh.   
  
Dread plummeted into his tanks.   
  
It was a statement from the Regent. Starscream had put a new law into effect. Anyone caught assisting or concealing an Empurata mech was to be arrested immediately and the Empura to be taken into custody. It did not say what the punishment would be for those arrested.   
  
Normally, declarations such as these listed minimal fines. That there was nothing here was worrisome. It suggested a punishment worse than fines, worse than imprisonment.   
  
“When did you get this?” Sunstreaker asked.   
  
“Just now.” Sideswipe's engine rumbled, his field still spiking with concern. “Starscream's goons were handing them out. Gave me a whole stack to give to my customers.”   
  
Sunstreaker shook his head, the flimsy rattling in his grip. “The Regent's never cared about the Empuras before. That's why they're tossed down here. Cause no one cares. Why would he bother now?”   
  
“I don't know.” Sideswipe folded his arms. “And I don't care. All I know is that your pet has to go. I'm not going to prison for him.”   
  
Sunstreaker's gaze moved to the doorway. Sideswipe was a bit too loud and if any of their customers noticed…  
  
He pushed past Sideswipe to the small door that connected his studio to the apartment. “We can't talk about this here.”   
  
“Well, we're going to.” Sideswipe grabbed his arm, his grip firm, but not enough to dent.   
  
Sunstreaker half-whirled toward him as Sideswipe's field collided with his. There was anger, concern… and beneath it all, fear. Was Sideswipe truly afraid of the Regent? Of what he could do?   
  
Sunstreaker tugged on his arm. “Let me go.”   
  
“No.” Sideswipe flexed his fingers, his optics burning at Sunstreaker. “Look, it was fun while it lasted. I get it, I honestly do. And I was fine with it while it was just a phase, a coping mechanism or something. Now, he's just dangerous.”   
  
Sunstreaker's engine revved. “He's not the one who's dangerous!” he hissed, his spark throbbing in his chestplate. “I'm not going to just throw him out there. He'll die.”   
  
“He survived well enough before. He can do it again.” Sideswipe stepped closer, his voice quieting but no less urgent. “I will not let that Empura be what gets us killed.”   
  
“And I'm not going to toss him out!” Sunstreaker shoved on Sideswipe's chestplate, forcing him to let go. “I'm not afraid of the Regent!”   
  
Sideswipe's optics flashed. “Well, you should be. You have no idea how dangerous he is!” His field swept through the room, battering against Sunstreaker's like a physical blow.   
  
“I don't care,” Sunstreaker hissed, denta gritting so hard he tasted sparks on his glossa. “I'm not making him leave.”   
  
“Primus-be-damned, Sunstreaker!” Sideswipe snarled, his voice getting loud, too loud.   
  
It drew the attention of some of their customers, who peered into Sunstreaker's studio with gleeful expressions.   
  
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe having a row wasn't at all unusual. They tended to argue about the stupid things. But this topic alone was enough to get them unwanted attention.   
  
Sunstreaker narrowed his optics, shifting so that his back was to the door, though it left his armor itching. “If you make him leave, then I will, too,” he said, his voice cold and low, only audible to Sideswipe.   
  
“You can't be serious.”   
  
Sunstreaker lifted his head. “Oh, yeah? Watch me.”   
  
He spun on a heel, stalking toward the door. The customers scattered once they saw him coming. Frequent visitors learned their lessons. Never get between the twins when they were disagreeing.   
  
“Sunny, stop!”   
  
Sideswipe grabbed his arm, yanking him back. Sunstreaker's engine raced. He didn't hesitate. He spun into the pull, using his momentum to his advantage, his free hand balled into a fist. He punched Sideswipe, his brother too unprepared to dodge in time, the fist slamming into Sideswipe's right cheek.   
  
Sideswipe howled, jerking back and releasing Sunstreaker at the same time. He grabbed at his cheek, the dermal plating already beginning to swell, even as he stared at Sunstreaker, optics wide. His vents stuttered.   
  
Sunstreaker tucked his arm back at his side, though his hands remained in fists. His own vents whirred, and his engine rumbled from the wildness of his emotions. He had struck Sideswipe before. Physical altercations between them were nothing new. This, however, had a different taste to it.   
  
“No,” Sunstreaker said carefully, each word enunciated. “I'm not going to lose anyone else, Sideswipe. I refuse.”   
  
Sideswipe stared after him, something bleak and hurting in his expression. Sunstreaker's spark squeezed into a tiny ball. He hated to see that look on Sideswipe's face. He hated knowing that he'd put it there.   
  
Yet, he couldn't bring himself to apologize. Not right now. Not with customers peering at them around the edges of the doorway, and the threat of Dent's safety hanging in the balance.   
  
Sunstreaker spun back on a heel and stormed out of his studio, the crowd parting. At least, those that hadn't already abandoned the cafe altogether. Here on the edge of Uraya, there wasn't much to be had in the way of entertainment. Some were probably disappointed that there hadn't been any energon shed.   
  
Sunstreaker ignored them all and headed for his shared apartment with Sideswipe. He'd leave Sideswipe to deal with the customers and the questions, give them some space. If he came back in later and spouted that same slag about Dent leaving, they'd have another chat.   
  
Or Sunstreaker would pack a bag. He had enough in his savings to get a small room until he could sell another painting. He'd figure out something. He wasn't helpless; he didn't need Sideswipe to protect him.   
  
He wasn't going to let Dent go. He wasn't going to lose another one. He wasn't. He refused.   
  
His spark squeezed tighter.   
  
Sunstreaker closed the door behind him, letting the quiet of the apartment swallow him. His hands ached, and he forced them to unclench. He looked at his right hand, at the scrape of silver paint across his knuckles.   
  
Sideswipe's paint.   
  
Sunstreaker bowed his head, gnawing on his bottom lip. He hated arguing with Sideswipe. He hated the clench of guilt, the squeeze of his spark. He hated that look in Sideswipe's optics.   
  
Sunstreaker scraped his hand down his face and cycled a shuddering ventilation. It took several of them before he managed to stop shaking.   
  
He went looking for Dent. Sometimes, just being in the Empura's presence was enough to bring him calm. There was something soothing about the Empura, something Sunstreaker still couldn't explain, awkward moments aside.   
  
“Dent?”   
  
He checked the washrack, the berthrooms, the storage-cum-Dent's room, the main room. He looked in the closets, and it wasn't until Sunstreaker looked under the berths, too, that he started to panic.   
  
“Dent?”   
  
No signs of a struggle. Nothing in disarray. He hadn't been taken. He must have left on his own.   
  
Sunstreaker's spark strobed panic. He rushed to the back door, shoving it open. It was enclosed by a tall fence, mostly as a deterrent and preventative. Anyone could climb over it if they were nimble enough.   
  
Then again, Dent could have walked through the front door while he and Sideswipe argued, and Sunstreaker wouldn't have noticed.   
  
He went back into the apartment and searched again, just to be sure, but Dent was truly gone. He hadn't even taken any of the pouches from the cabinet. Of course he wouldn't.   
  
This was insane! Sunstreaker was sure they'd convinced him he could remain. Unless…  
  
Oh, Primus. Unless he'd overheard Sunstreaker and Sideswipe arguing. The side door from Sunstreaker's studio into the apartment was right by a storage closet, the one Dent favored for cleaning supplies.   
  
That idiot!  
  
Sunstreaker whipped back toward the cafe, anger and frustration both building inside of him, strong enough to eclipse the fear. He stalked back into the main dining area, his field preceding him in a boil of anger, and causing no few patrons to quail away.   
  
“Come to apologize?” Sideswipe asked, his tone cold.   
  
“No.” Sunstreaker snapped, his plating fluffed out as his defense protocols activated, preparing him for a fight. “I'm leaving.”   
  
“What? Sunny!” Sideswipe threw down his cloth and vaulted over the counter. “You can't be serious? Where are you going to go?”   
  
“Out.” Sunstreaker stormed toward the door, customers scattering in front of him like frightened turbofoxes.   
  
Sideswipe intercepted him, skidding to a stop and planting his hands on Sunstreaker's chestplate. “Do you even hear yourself?” he hissed as his hands impacted Sunstreaker's armor with a loud chime. “You're acting crazy.”   
  
Sunstreaker stared at him, jaw set. “He's gone.”   
  
“What?”  
  
“ _He's gone_ ,” Sunstreaker gritted out, his hands forming fists. “He left because he heard you.”   
  
“Am I supposed to be upset about that?” Sideswipe demanded, his engine revving. “Him being here was putting us in danger!”   
  
“And he's in danger out there!” Sunstreaker shouted, his field slamming into the room with all the subtlety of a hammer. “Get out of my way, Sideswipe.”   
  
“No!” Sideswipe's hands grew firmer on his chestplate. “I'm not letting you go storming off into the Wastes after some… some...”   
  
Sunstreaker snarled. “Some what? Go on, Sideswipe. Why don't you say it? Tell me exactly what you think of him.”   
  
Sideswipe glared at him, vents heaving. “He is _not_ Prowl,” he said, his voice oddly hushed. His cheek was still swollen, energon dried in the cut Sunstreaker's knuckle had left behind. “And I need you to realize that.”   
  
“I'm not stupid. I know that. I know that he's gone. I know that he left.” It hurt so much to say. It came out in a strangled sound, something tore from his vocalizer. “I know that he's not Prowl,” Sunstreaker repeated, as much for himself as much for Sideswipe. “But he is my friend, and that's all the reason I need.”   
  
Sunstreaker wasn't Sideswipe. He didn't know how to charm people. He didn't know how to connect and carry a conversation. He got lost in the words. He couldn't read others either.   
  
Sunstreaker didn't have friends.   
  
Before Prowl, he'd never even had a lover.   
  
It hit him just then. It occurred to him why he'd clung to Dent so tightly, why he'd wanted to protect Dent and give him a place to stay.   
  
Sunstreaker's vents hitched as he looked his brother in the optics. “I have to find him, Sideswipe. I have to.”   
  
His twin's shoulders slumped, his head hanging. His hands softened on Sunstreaker's chestplate. “Fine,” he said, sounding tired. “I won't fight you on this. I'll even help you, but please, Sunny. Not tonight. Just trust me. Not tonight.”   
  
Sunstreaker shook so hard he can hear his armor rattling. But Sideswipe's plea struck a chord with him. There was something in his twin's optics that spoke of more than his disdain for Dent and what he represented. There was fear.   
  
“Fine,” Sunstreaker gritted out. “But only for tonight.”   
  
He took a step back, forcing Sideswipe's hands to slide off his chestplate. The anger rattled inside of him like a loose gear. He gave Sideswipe another long look and then stomped back toward their apartment.   
  
He was painfully aware of their audience, of the customers who watched and spoke to each other in hushed words.   
  
“Okay! Show's over!” Sideswipe said in a fakely cheerful voice, clapping his hands together. “What say you to a free round of engex on the house, hm?”   
  
The cheer that rose behind Sunstreaker was muted and lacked enthusiasm, but hopefully, Sideswipe could get them all drunk enough they'd forget this night happened. Honestly, Sunstreaker wanted to indulge in the engex himself.   
  
Dent was out there while the Regent's soldiers were distributing those flyers. He had taken nothing with him. Who knew how far he would go?   
  
Sunstreaker worried. He worried more than he could express in words. He feared for Dent, alone in the dark, surrounded by the half-crazed Empuras and the hungry Empties.   
  
Dent was clean and polished. He was in good repair. He would stick out like a noble in Uraya's main square. He looked like an easy mark.   
  
Sunstreaker gnawed on his bottom lip. His hands clenched and unclenched.   
  
Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would look. Tomorrow he would bring Dent home.   
  


~

  
  
Every moment. Every available opportunity. If he was not minding the counter for Sideswipe, Sunstreaker searched.   
  
He thought he'd lived long enough on the edge of the Wastes to have a decent idea of the layout. He was wrong. The deeper he ventured, the more twisted and confusing it became. Roads simply ended. Rusting, decayed buildings collapsed to create shambling husks of dark hiding places.   
  
Empties peered at him from the dim, denta clicking noisily. Other Empura hid when they saw him coming, as though they believed him to be one of Starscream's goons.   
  
None stuck around long enough for Sunstreaker to ask them a question. No one would help him. But Dent had to be here. He wasn't in the handfuls of Empuras Sunstreaker had seen Starscream's goons lead out day after day.   
  
He'd lived for weeks on his own. He knew how to survive. Sunstreaker still didn't intend to leave him out here.   
  
Days passed. Then weeks. A month crawled by, agonizingly slow. The distance between he and Sideswipe grew frostier. They barely spoke.   
  
Sideswipe offered to help. Sunstreaker told him not to bother. He had more important things to do.   
  
Sunstreaker kept looking. He returned home dirty and exhausted, his tank pinging him for energon. He had to hide from Starscream's goons more than a few times, lest he be caught associating with Empuras.   
  
He looked. He vowed to never stop looking until he found Dent, or what was left of him. Until he found a clue that would either lead him to Dent, or to the Regent's Palace.   
  
Prowl left.   
  
Sunstreaker refused to lose anyone again.   
  


~

  
  
“He won't talk to me,” Sideswipe said, frustration spitting static into his vocals. He hit a corner, spun and kept going. “He barely even looks at me. I know he blames me, but frag, how was I supposed to know?”   
  
Ricochet sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Sides, you're makin’ me dizzy.”   
  
He stopped mid-pace, spinning to look straight at his lover. Ricochet was perched in a chair, leaning forward on his elbows, visor dim.   
  
“Sorry,” Sideswipe said with a cycled ventilation. “I just… I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And you can't tell me because you're compromised or whatever.” He flopped a hand vaguely.   
  
No mixing business with pleasure. He could talk about Dent with Ricochet and be reassured that Ricochet would never tell Starscream about him. But that also meant Ricochet wouldn't tell him if Starscream had Dent, or what to do about it.   
  
Ricochet leaned back and ran a hand over his head. “That's one way ta put it. Seems ta me you're doing everything ya can. All that's left is ta wait for your brother ta get over it.”   
  
“Right. Get over it.” Sideswipe snorted. “Sunny doesn't do that. He dwells. He lingers. He already thinks he failed Prowl somehow. And now he's equated the two in that fool head of his.”   
  
“Is that such a bad thing?”   
  
Sideswipe tilted his head, blinking. “What do you mean?”   
  
Ricochet leaned his head against his fist, bracing his elbow on the arm of the chair. “You objected ta the Empura even before the declaration. Why?”   
  
“Because he's dangerous!”   
  
“Is he?”   
  
Sideswipe stared at Ricochet. “… he's an Empura,” he answered, and realized how stupid he sounded.   
  
He sighed and scraped a hand down his face. “You don't understand. It's Sunny, okay? I just--”  
  
“--are weirdly protective of him?” Ricochet's lips quirked in a grin before his free hand gestured to Sideswipe, beckoning him closer. “It's okay. I get it. My brother's like that, too.”   
  
Sideswipe blinked and moved closer. “You have a brother?”   
  
“Mmm. An older one.” Ricochet captured his hand and dragged Sideswipe down into his lap, as amusing as it was given their height difference. The chair creaked beneath their weight, but held fast. “He's a pain in my crankshift. Loves the rules. And he's protective like you are. Took me forever ta convince him ta let me do what I want to do.”   
  
Sideswipe arched an orbital ridge as he draped his arms over Ricochet's shoulders. “Huh. I can't imagine why he would object to you being a thug on the edge on the Wastes.”   
  
“I am far better than a thug,” Ricochet said with a note of fake-offense in his tone. “But that's beside the point.”   
  
He tugged Sideswipe closer until their frames were flush. He tipped his chin up, putting their lips in proximity.   
  
“There's a point when ya gotta let go,” Ricochet murmured, his fingers teasing a gentle pattern up the ridges of Sideswipe's spinal strut. “When ya let him make his own choices, his own mistakes.”   
  
Sideswipe hummed in his intake. “I know that. I'm not his caretaker.”   
  
Ricochet chuckled. “Sometimes, I'm not sure ya know that.” He leaned in, lips brushing over Sideswipe's. “You'll get through this. I'm sure of it. Just stop trying ta lead him and start standin’ beside him.”   
  
“Heh. Since when are you so full of sage advice?” Sideswipe asked, tracing his nasal ridge over Ricochet's cheek, just below his visor.   
  
“Since always.” Ricochet's engine purred, fingers dipping into Sideswipe's transformation seams. “So how's about instead of talking, ya let me distract you?”   
  
Sideswipe's dermal plating tingled. “Sounds good to me,” he breathed before dragging his mouth to Ricochet's and capturing his lips for a glossa-tangling kiss.   
  
He had only a few hours before he needed to return to the apartment and make sure Sunstreaker came back safely.   
  
He wanted to make the most of every moment of it.   
  


~

  
  
Sunstreaker was running out of places to look.   
  
Granted, the Wastes were large, far more than Sunstreaker ever gave it credit. Given that it was a dumping ground for almost the entirety of Cybertron, could he be so surprised? He was at the point of daring to go underground, something even the desperate were reluctant to do.   
  
Surely Dent wasn't so foolish as to hide there?   
  
Sunstreaker paused and ducked into an alley. He leaned against a decaying wall, ex-venting softly. He was exhausted. He needed to get home before Sideswipe started to ping him with worry again. He had the unfortunate feeling that someone or something had been following him…  
  
Sunstreaker shuttered his optics, counted his vents. He could spare maybe twenty more minutes of searching before he'd need to start heading back.   
  
He didn't want to lose hope, but he wondered if maybe he ought to be realistic. Maybe it wasn't that he couldn't find Dent, but that Dent hid from him on purpose. Maybe, no matter how hard he looked, he'd never find his friend.   
  
Sunstreaker sighed and pushed himself off the wall. Nothing to it. Once more, into the breach, he reasoned.   
  
He would just have to keep on looking.   
  
“You need to go home.”   
  
Sunstreaker whirled around, his spark throbbing in his chest. There, in the dark and dim, he could barely make out the shape of another mech. But there was no mistaking that field, the familiarity of it, almost reaching for Sunstreaker's own as if magnetically drawn.   
  
“Dent?” Sunstreaker whispered, taking a step toward the dark shape. It immediately moved back a step and Sunstreaker froze.   
  
“You need to go home.” The sound of pincers clicking together nervously filled the space between them. “It is not safe here.”   
  
“I can take care of myself.” Sunstreaker worked his intake. “Besides, I'm not going home until you come with me.”   
  
The single optic dimmed. “I cannot see you harmed,” he said, voice wreathed with static, the strong flare of his field abruptly dropping into something barely tangible. As though he'd expended what little energy he had.   
  
“Pah. I'm not scared of the Regent.”   
  
“You should be.” Dent slid away another step, until Sunstreaker could barely make out his shape. He wished he had more light so he could see Dent in full. “Dangerous.”   
  
Sunstreaker closed his hands into fists. “You let me be the judge of that.” He cycled a ventilation and peered over his shoulder, out the mouth of the alley.   
  
There was no one around. No prying audials. Well, save for the Empties and other Empuras. But they were as unlikely to betray Sunstreaker, as they were unlikely to offer aid.   
  
“I want you to come home,” Sunstreaker said, his spark squeezing again. He tried inching closer to Dent, and was relieved when the Empura didn't immediately shift away.   
  
“Sideswipe--”  
  
“Frag Sideswipe!” Sunstreaker hissed, perhaps a bit too sharply, because Dent cringed away from him, and Sunstreaker cursed at himself. “I'm sorry. I meant, Sideswipe's dumb. Don't listen to him. You belong with us. With… with me.”   
  
Dent's optic flared brightly. His vents stuttered. His pincers clicked together again. “With… you?” His field shivered where it gently touched Sunstreaker's. “Sir, I can't.”   
  
Sunstreaker flinched. So it was back to that, was it? He gnawed on the inside of his cheek, wishing he was better at this, at talking. How could he help Dent understand?   
  
“Because you don't want to?” Sunstreaker asked, trying to keep his voice soft. “Or because you think you shouldn't?”   
  
Dent's optic grew even brighter. His vocals lay a round of static and he pressed against the alley wall. “I… can't.”   
  
Sunstreaker's spark ached. He took a small step forward, reaching for the other mech. “Dent--”  
  
\--Sunny!--  
  
He hissed, dizziness cresting over him. Sunstreaker reeled, his shoulder hitting the alley wall as he clutched at his head.   
  
\--Sides…? What…?--  
  
\--Stay away!--   
  
Their bond flashed, fear and panic intermingled. Sunstreaker's knees wobbled and he dropped. His focus turned inward, and both hands clutched at his head now. It felt like his processor was trying to split open, such was the volume of Sideswipe's shout.   
  
\--What? Why?--  
  
\--It's the Regent.-- Sideswipe's comm was strained and their bond sizzled again. --Please, for once, just listen to me, damn it. I need you to--  
  
The comm cut off, leaving Sunstreaker with a static-laced silence. He could still feel Sideswipe on the other side of the bond, faint impressions of worry, of false bravado. But no matter how many times Sunstreaker pinged his twin, Sideswipe would not pick up.   
  
“Sunstreaker?”   
  
Warmth. Comfort. Familiarity.   
  
Sunstreaker blinked, looking up to find that Dent had approached him. One pincer gingerly lay on Sunstreaker's shoulder as that single optic glowed down at him.   
  
“It's Sideswipe,” Sunstreaker gasped, his mouth dry, his legs trembling. “Something's happened. I don't know. I have to… I have to get back.”   
  
He pushed himself back to his feet, bracing himself against the wall. His entire frame wobbled. Sideswipe hadn't leaned this hard on their bond in centuries. Not since they were trying to scrap out a living in the Wastes.   
  
“I will go with you,” Dent said.   
  
Sunstreaker stared at him, vision wavering before it clarified. “But--”  
  
Dent approached, sliding an arm around Sunstreaker's waist and encouraging him to lean against Dent's side. “You will need help.”   
  
Sunstreaker leaned hard into him, his knees like gelatin but holding his weight. “Does this mean you'll stay?”   
  
Dent's pincer twitched at his side. “I will see.”   
  
It was enough.   
  
“That's fair.” Sunstreaker took one careful step, grateful for Dent's support. “We can worry about Sideswipe first.”   
  
After all, if the panic in Sideswipe's voice was anything to go back, Sunstreaker might not have a home to go back to.   
  


~

  
  
Sideswipe finished wiping down the display bottle of engex and returned it to the shelf behind the bar, fighting back another sigh. There was a certain degree of energy any good bartender knew to maintain. He simply found himself struggling to keep it up day after day.   
  
Tense was too soft a word to describe the atmosphere between him and his brother. Sunstreaker was mad at him, perhaps rightly so, but he didn't understand, damn it.  
  
It was all Prowl's fault, when Sideswipe traced everything to the roots. If Prowl hadn't come here and swept Sunstreaker up into romantic fantasies, none of this would be happening now.   
  
Sideswipe's engine grumbled. He set his jaw and reached for the next bottle to dust. His cafe was already sparkling clean, but he needed something to do that wasn't pacing back and forth behind the bar, anxiously watching the door.   
  
Sunny was out there again, searching for that fragging Empura, and there wasn't a damn thing Sideswipe could do to stop him.   
  
The tiny bell dinged. Customers.   
  
Sideswipe planted a smile on his face and turned. “Welcome to Color and-- Oh.” He steeled himself, spark throbbing with anxiety as Starscream, Ricochet, and a handful of mercenaries crowded into his cafe. “What can I do for you, Regent? I didn't know we had a meeting.”  
  
Starscream grinned and sauntered toward the counter. “We don't,” he said, something in his tone making Sideswipe's spinal strut shiver. “I came here for another matter. An official one.” He tilted his head, resting a single clawed hand on the counter. “I hear rumors, Sideswipe, and I am very disappointed.”   
  
“Rumors?” Sideswipe repeated, keeping up his grin. From his peripheral vision, he could see Starscream's goons scaring his customers right out of the cafe.   
  
Frag.   
  
Fragfragfragfragfrag.   
  
“Of what sort?” Sideswipe asked even as he sent a ping to Sunstreaker's comm, which predictably, was sent straight to his inbox. So Sideswipe sent another. And another.   
  
Starscream leaned against the counter, only the space of it separating them. “I've been informed that you are hiding an Empura,” he purred, crimson optics bright. “Which we all know is an offense that demands an immediate arrest.”   
  
Sideswipe very slowly set down the bottle of engex. “I don't know what you mean. There's no one here but you and me, your guards and well, not any customers though. Seems you scared them off.” He braced his hands on the counter and grinned.   
  
Sunstreaker didn't answer his ping. Damn it.   
  
He only had one tactic left, and Sideswipe hated to do it. He had no choice. Sunstreaker couldn't come back here. Especially if he'd found Dent.   
  
Sideswipe leaned on their bond. He tapped on it. He beat on it. He shoved into it like he hadn't in decades because it tended to send Sunny reeling.   
  
Starscream grinned. “Perhaps. So I'm sure you won't mind if I have a small look around, just to be sure.” He lifted a hand, making a gesture that prompted his squad of guards to make a beeline toward their apartment. Only Ricochet stayed behind.   
  
“Sure.” Sideswipe shrugged nonchalantly. “The door's unlocked. You won't find anything.”   
  
“I hope I don't.” Starscream's optics flashed and he moved, quicker than Sideswipe could have expected. His hand shot across the bar, snatching Sideswipe's jaw and holding it firmly. “It's unfortunate, really. You were my favorite supplier.”   
  
Sideswipe's spark rang with fear. He jerked back, away from Starscream, as Sunstreaker finally answered the ping. He shouted a warning at his brother over the comm.   
  
“I still can be.” Sideswipe's vents stuttered, uneven. “There's no one here so you have nothing to worry about. We can quash that pesky rumor and get back to business.”   
  
Starscream's smirk showed too much denta for Sideswipe's comfort. “Yes,” he said. “Business. As it turns out, I have need of you and your brother for a little venture.”   
  
“Can I say no?”   
  
Starscream's smile widened. “That depends on what I find in your apartment.”   
  
Sideswipe worked his intake. His glance skittered to Ricochet, but his lover was stone-faced and silent. He stood there like the silent but deadly guard he was, arms folded behind his back.   
  
Right. Never mixing business with pleasure. Sideswipe could expect no help on that front.   
  
“Then let me go ahead and turn you down gently,” Sideswipe said brightly, pretending to wipe down the counter and easing away from Starscream. “Because, as I said, there's no one here but me and my business, which is sadly, now empty.”   
  
The apartment door shoved back open. “He's telling the truth,” one of Starscream's hired guns said as he stepped out, another on his heels. “There is no one here.”   
  
“But we did find these,” the second said as he tossed a handful of energon pouches onto the counter.   
  
Sideswipe worked his intake. “So?”   
  
Starscream walked to the end of the counter, dragging his clawtip along the top of it until he came to the pouches. “You have a mouth,” he observed idly. He picked up one of the pouches, examining it. “No need for these.”   
  
“I run a cafe.”   
  
Starscream thumbed the tip of the pouch, designed to accommodate an auto-injector. “This is specifically designed to fuel an Empura.” He gave Sideswipe a sideways look. “I don't imagine you have too many paying customers of those, do you?”   
  
Sideswipe set his jaw. “I make it a habit of stocking everything.”   
  
“Mm. Sure you do.” Starscream tossed the pouch onto the pile, his wings flicking left and right. “Where is your brother?”   
  
“Out.”   
  
Starscream's lips curved into a smile that Sideswipe had learned to be wary of. “Out the back, I suppose. Perhaps the moment you saw us walk in?” He shook his head, clicking his glossa. “I'm so disappointed, Sideswipe. I thought we had something special.” One hand lifted, gesturing toward Sideswipe.   
  
The two goons rushed around the bar. Sideswipe held up his hands, hoping to forestall violence, thinking cooperation might gain him some slack.   
  
Cooperation didn't stop the two mechs from slamming him face first onto the counter and roughly cuffing his hands behind his back. Perhaps they'd been warned. Maybe they expected resistance.   
  
Ow. Sideswipe started to think he should have started with resistance. His shoulders ached where they wrenched his arms back too suddenly. The cuffs were strong when he tested them, Enforcer grade if he had a guess.   
  
The shipment he'd gotten for Starscream two months ago – courtesy of Swindle – was coming back to bite him in the aft.   
  
“I didn't do anything!” Sideswipe growled.   
  
They hauled him back upright, each gripping him by the shoulder, as they mechhandled him around the counter.  
  
“Harboring an Empura is prohibited,” Starscream said dryly as he watched his mercenaries drag Sideswipe to the center of the cafe. He strode closer, tilting his head. “Where is he?”   
  
“He's out!” Sideswipe snarled, grinding his denta. “Why are you so interested in my brother anyway.”   
  
Starscream rolled his optics. “Not your twin. His pet.”   
  
Sideswipe's engine growled. “I don't know what you're talking about.”   
  
“You're not as good a liar as you think you are.” Starscream whirled on a heelstrut. “No matter. He'll show up eventually. Let's go.”   
  
He strode toward the door, Ricochet preceding him and his guards dragging Sideswipe out behind him. His customers had all scattered, Sideswipe noticed sourly. Outside, he could see a few curious faces peering his direction, mostly from the position of onlooker. No one offered help.   
  
No one wanted to cross the Regent.   
  
Sideswipe should have known. At least he would be relieved to know that Sunstreaker was far, far away by now. He should have gone to their bolthole, grabbed the supplies and ran, if he knew what was good for him.   
  
Because Sideswipe had the discomfiting feeling that he might not make it out of this alive.   
  


~

  
  
Sunstreaker ran.   
  
He hated the roads, the clogged and cluttered pathways that made transforming impossible. He hated that he still felt weak, that his knees wobbled, but worry eclipsed all else. Worry kept him going, putting one foot in front of the other, ducking down alleyways and climbing over debris.   
  
Dent was on his heels, surprisingly able to keep up, though his ventilations puffed and stuttered and he made as much noise as Sunstreaker did.   
  
The main road back into Uraya came into view, but Sunstreaker skirted around it, coming up behind _Color and Conversation_ instead. As he did, he caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the Regent and a handful of guards.   
  
Sunstreaker skidded to a halt and ducked behind a pile of garbage, pulling Dent down beside him. His spark thudded in his chassis.   
  
The Regent, a handful of assorted guards and – Sunstreaker leaned out long enough to look before ducking back – yeah. They had Sideswipe. Frag.   
  
“Sunstreaker?”   
  
He muttered another curse under his vents and pulled out his blaster, checking the charge. Half-power. Not enough.   
  
“I don't know why Starscream wants Sideswipe, but he can't have him,” Sunstreaker said, pushing back to his feet.   
  
He kept to the shadows, to the cover offered by buildings and piles of refuse as he tried to plan his attack. Not that there was much he could plan. He was outnumbered and outgunned. All he had was the element of surprise.   
  
“The Regent is dangerous,” Dent said as he followed along, keeping himself hidden far better than Sunstreaker did.   
  
“Not as much as I can be.” Sunstreaker ducked into an alley, trying to ignore the tremors in his spark.   
  
Why did Starscream linger? What was he waiting for?   
  
No. That answer was obvious. This was a trap, and Sunstreaker was going to walk right into it. What other choice did he have?   
  
“Stay here,” Sunstreaker said. His spark pounded in his chest. “I can't do this and worry about you, too. Okay?”   
  
Dent's optic brightened at him. “You will need assistance.”   
  
“I can do this on my own.” Sunstreaker gripped his blaster and cycled a vent. “It won't be the first time. Just… stay here.”   
  
Dent lifted his head in a nod, his single optic dimming. “Very well.”   
  
Sunstreaker worked his intake and then pushed to his feet. He felt he should say something else, but there was nothing to say.   
  
He crept to the edge of the alley and peered out. No one had moved, though Starscream had taken to pacing. Sideswipe looked obstinate. Two of the guards looked bored, their hands resting casually near their blasters.   
  
It was most definitely a trap.   
  
But it wasn't the worst odds Sunstreaker had ever faced. He'd already lost Prowl. He wasn't going to lose Sideswipe, too.   
  
Sunstreaker flexed his grip around his blaster. Starscream spun on a heel, his back to Sunstreaker's position. His wings twitched. He looked to be in the middle of some speech.   
  
Now or never.   
  
Sunstreaker emerged from his hiding place. He let his blaster announce his appearance, firing at the two guards who looked bored. One shot struck true, straight through the chassis. The other guard dodged and Sunstreaker took out his knee, firing again when he collapsed to blow up his blaster.   
  
Two down, two to go, and Starscream.   
  
Sunstreaker pointed his blaster at the Seeker, keeping his focus on Starscream and the guards in his peripheral. “I have no qualms about killing you,” he said, his voice cold. “Let my brother go.”   
  
Starscream grinned, folding his arms over his cockpit. “Thank you for saving me the trouble of finding you,” he purred.   
  
“Let him go!” Sunstreaker snarled, the blaster giving off a charging whine.   
  
“No,” Starscream replied, in the same moment that Sideswipe threw himself forward.   
  
“Behind you!” Sideswipe shouted as the two guards yanked him back.   
  
Sunstreaker spun as a fist swung toward his face. No time to move, no time to avoid. It slammed into the side of his head, sending his processor into disarray. Strong fingers gripped his wrist, yanking him forward, off-balance. He dropped the gun, fingers lacking input, and Sunstreaker swung blindly.   
  
He connected, heard the dull impact of metal on metal, and a low curse. Ricochet. He knew that voice.   
  
Stars danced in his optical feed as another open-palmed smack struck the opposite side of his head. Static overlaced it all, audials ringing. Sunstreaker stumbled. Everything was a rush, a blur, until sensation snapped into sharp relief with the inhibitor cuffs that were slapped around his wrists.   
  
Sunstreaker's knees buckled and he slumped forward, knees hitting the ground. His arms were cuffed behind his back, numb from the elbows down. His tanks lurched as the disorientating pulse of the inhibitor cuff swept through his frame. How did Ricochet get hold of those?  
  
“Now,” Starscream said, his voice as if from a distance. “Perhaps we can discuss this like civilized mecha. Ricochet, bring him here.”   
  
“Yes, sir.” Ricochet hauled Sunstreaker back to his feet and dragged him across the ground, only to shove him down next to his brother.   
  
Sunstreaker's processor whirled. Lights danced in his optics. It was hard to focus on anything except the lurching of his tanks. This morning's energon wanted to re-emerge.   
  
Sharp pain echoed through his head, where Ricochet had struck him the first time. Sunstreaker groaned, his fuzzy vision clarifying into Starscream leaning over him.   
  
“Pay attention,” the Regent said. “I asked you a question.”   
  
Sunstreaker forced himself to focus, to look up at Starscream, building belligerence into his expression. “I'm not answering any questions,” he slurred.   
  
The Regent held out a hand, one of their guards slipping a blaster into it. He flicked a thumb over the charging node. “I may be able to change your mind,” he said, and aimed the blaster toward Sideswipe. “Now where is he?'   
  
Sunstreaker's spark skipped an oscillation. His optics widened. “I don't know what you're talking about.”   
  
“Of course you don't.” Starscream rolled his optics. “Don't play games with me, brat. Where is your pet, the Empura, the mech you're protecting.”   
  
“What? I'm not protecting anyone except my brother!” Sunstreaker said and wriggled beneath the grip of on his shoulder.   
  
Starscream cycled a ventilation, his lips pressing to a thin line. “Then suppose you tell me how you found out,” he said, an odd shift of gears as he made a broad gesture with his blaster. “Did you realize it on your own, or is there actually something left of Prowl in there?”  
  
Sunstreaker's vents caught. He worked his intake, rebooting his audials. “Prowl? Prowl's gone,” he spat, forcing anger into his vocals to hide the fear. “He left months ago.”   
  
“I am not an idiot, Sunstreaker.” Starscream leaned closer, looming without trying, the tip of the blaster forcing Sunstreaker's chin up so that their optics could meet. “You'd taken it into your home. You sheltered it, fed it, polished it. You've known it was Prowl all along, didn't you?”   
  
Sunstreaker's optics widened. His world ground to a halt. He rebooted everything, his gaze sliding to Sideswipe before a tap of the blaster barrel redirected it back to Starscream.   
  
“He's… he's Prowl?” Sunstreaker repeated, barely above a whisper, too small for his comfort. He swayed, processor spinning. “Oh, Primus. That makes so much sense now. But I don't understand. How...”   
  
“You didn't know.” Starscream sounded disappointed. He spat a barrage of static at Sunstreaker and straightened. “Of course you didn't. That would have been too easy for me.” He muttered something else, but it sounded like static to Sunstreaker's audials.   
  
Sunstreaker shook his head slowly, the realization crawling over him in a hot, burning wave.   
  
Prowl. His Prowl. And Dent. Beaten. Battered. His sensory flats gone, the nubs on Dent's back. Scorched off. Torn off. Did it matter which?   
  
His face, oh his beautiful face. His hands. The same hands that had been gentle, that had coaxed Sunstreaker into overload, that had taught him to dance.   
  
He'd thought. He'd thought Prowl had left him. He'd thought he'd been abandoned. But Prowl had been there all along, without even knowing it.   
  
“You….” Sunstreaker's engine raced as he dragged his gaze up, his entire frame going still, fury burning deep within his belly. “What did you do to him?”   
  
Sideswipe made a distressed noise. “Sunny--”  
  
“No!” he growled and shook his head, plating vibrating. “All this time, I thought… and then you… you mutilated _him_!”   
  
Starscream stared at him, not an ounce of expression in his face. “Yes,” he said coldly. “Because his spark means nothing to me.” His wings twitched. “There's only one spark I'm interested in saving, and it's none of yours.”  
  
Sunstreaker's engine whined. He shook.   
  
Prowl had been next to him the entire time, and he'd never known it, hadn't recognized. How could he not know?   
  
“I tire of these games,” Starscream said, sounding bored. “Is your little pity party over? Because there is still a question I have need of answering.”   
  
Sunstreaker shook his head slowly, his processing capabilities still sluggish. “You think I would offer him up to you after this?” He dragged his gaze up, to Starscream, letting the fury blaze brightly in his optics. “You can rust in the Pit.”   
  
“I thought you might say that.” The blaster returned, pointed at Sideswipe yet again, though close enough now that Sideswipe could probably feel the heat of the barrel.   
  
“So let me make this abundantly clear,” Starscream continued as he hit the charging node again. “While I have use of you and your brother, I suspect the answers I need are within Prowl. You are expendable.” He tilted his head, crimson optics incisive. “Is one Iacon brat worth the life of your brother?”   
  
Sunstreaker's ventilations wheezed. His armor clattered. The taste of betrayal, he knew, would be bitter on his glossa.   
  
“Decide quickly.” Starscream's tone was cold, empty. “My hand grows weak.”   
  
“I--” Sunstreaker faltered. It wasn't that he couldn't decide. In the space of a sparkbeat, he knew he would choose Sideswipe. He would always choose his brother.   
  
It was in the idea of losing Prowl again that he faltered.   
  
“Starscream.” Ricochet stepped into view, one hand landing on Starscream's wrist and gently pushing it and the barrel of the gun away from Sideswipe's head. “Look.” He tilted his head.   
  
Sunstreaker followed the gesture as Starscream whipped around, the outrage in his field echoed by the loud snap of his wings. There, stepping out of the alley, each step measured and careful, was Dent. Or Prowl.   
  
Sunstreaker's spark sank.   
  
“Well, now,” Starscream purred as he turned fully toward the oncoming Empura. “Isn't this interesting? And here I thought you didn't remember anything.”   
  
“What are you doing, idiot?” Sunstreaker shouted, trying to move forward, but only effecting a dull shuffle on his knees. “Get out of here! Run!”   
  
Dent's single optic focused on him. “No.”   
  
“Goddamn fool of an Empura,” Sideswipe snarled beside Sunstreaker, and then there was a blur of motion.   
  
Sideswipe threw himself to the side, aiming at the guard to his right, tackling the mech to the ground. He slammed his shoulder into the guard's chestplate, though it was Sideswipe's plating that gave way. He howled, scrambling to get the upper hand, but the other guard was on him in an instant.   
  
A blow to the head left Sideswipe reeling long enough for the guard to drag him back over and plop him into place beside Sunstreaker. His head hung and dents showed up in stark relief against the red of his armor. His bottom lip pulsed energon.   
  
“Why would you do that?” Sunstreaker asked.   
  
Sideswipe's lips curved. “Because.”   
  
Above them, Starscream huffed a ventilation. “That was pointless,” he said, wings flicking. “Ricochet, retrieve Dent.”   
  
It was over. Not that it ever had a chance to begin. Starscream was right: pointless. Then again, much of Sunstreaker's functioning had been a pointless rage against the machine. He'd fought for so many things he didn't deserve, and all of this right here, right now, was proof of it.   
  
“Ya know what, sir?” Ricochet pulled one of his blasters out of a thigh panel. “How about no?”  
  
The blaster whipped up and Ricochet squeezed the trigger, faster than any of them could register. The guards to either side of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe crumpled, smoking holes in their chassis. The distinct scorched scent of expended spark rose thickly in the air.   
  
Sunstreaker stared, sucking in a sharp ventilation. What in the name of Primus…?  
  
“What do you think you are doing!” Starscream shrieked, whirling toward his bodyguard.   
  
“What I should have done ages ago,” Ricochet growled as he advanced on Starscream, blaster leveled and steady. “Starscream, you are under arrest by order of the Enforcement Guild of Iacon.”   
  
Arrest? Like Starscream was going to go quietly.   
  
Starscream stared at him, frame taut, his wings hiked up. “No,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “No, I refuse,” he growled.   
  
“It wasn't a yes or no question,” Ricochet hissed as he stepped again to the side, firmly planting himself between Dent and Starscream. “For what ya've done to my brother, I should kill ya. Yer lucky that idiot infected me with somethin' like moral principles.”   
  
Starscream was distracted. Sunstreaker's processor spun. His hands were numb, his tank unsettled.   
  
He looked at Sideswipe, who was gathering himself up, getting one foot beneath him. He met Sunstreaker's gaze and nodded.   
  
Enough waiting.   
  
“Drop the blaster,” Ricochet said.   
  
Starscream laughed. It was a high-pitched eerie sound. His wings twitched. His flight engines spat fire from his thrusters.   
  
“All of my work,” he said, in between hiccups of his vents. “All of it to be undone in this moment.” He cackled, the eerie noise echoing in the air. “And it was all because of you.”   
  
The last was a snarl as Starscream shoved himself into the air with a pop of his thrusters, his blaster aimed unerringly at Ricochet.   
  
No. Not at Ricochet. Behind him.   
  
At Dent. At Prowl.   
  
No.   
  
_No_.   
  
Sunstreaker snarled and lunged to his feet. He ignored the heat of Starscream's thrusters. He ignored the lurch of his tanks, the pain in his chassis. He threw himself at Starscream, reaching with hands he hadn't realized were released from their bonds until his fingers wrapped around Starscream's ankles.   
  
He pulled.   
  
Starscream yelped.   
  
One thruster spat fire at Sunstreaker's face. The other sputtered. The Seeker tilted, dropping in the air.   
  
It was enough for Sunstreaker to get a hold of his knee, his hip, to pull and pull until Starscream growled and twisted toward him.   
  
“You are grit in my articulators,” he snarled as Sunstreaker stared into the barrel of a blaster.   
  
Spark pumping, he threw himself back, but it wasn't enough to avoid the agony that exploded in his chassis. Heat lanced through his entire frame, errors streaking across his HUD.   
  
He stumbled backward, legs feeling as strong as putty. Something ground in his chassis, wet and grating. His spark pulsed, erratic.   
  
Starscream shouted. He dimly saw Sideswipe take him down, saw Sideswipe snarl as he pummeled fist after fist on the Seeker. He saw them struggling, saw the blaster waving about, saw Starscream's claws rake across Sideswipe's upper chestplate, dangerously close to Sideswipe's main intake line.   
  
Sunstreaker didn't see red. He saw a kaleidoscope of colors that sparkled in his optics and tripped through his spark. He roared, a wordless sound, and threw himself into the fray. His ventilations staggered as he grappled with Starscream, trying to get the blaster away before it could do harm to any of the mechs Sunstreaker loved.   
  
Starscream snarled beneath him, spitting obscenity and insults. It sounded like static, a buzz in Sunstreaker's audials. His fingers shook. He felt weak, his distant sensory lines tingling. The warnings shrieked at him, louder, and louder.   
  
Someone screamed his name.   
  
Sunstreaker had a grip on the blaster. He wrenched it away, turned it around in his fingers. He had a knee on Starscream's abdomen; he had a gun in his hand. He had it pointed the right direction.   
  
Starscream went still beneath him. His fans spun. One wing was crumpled. One optic shattered. Energon bubbled around his sharpened denta. His glare was a challenge.   
  
“Do it,” he rasped, his field pummeling Sunstreaker with too much emotion, more than he could hope to identify. “If I can't save him, I'd rather die here.”   
  
Sunstreaker's ventilations heaved. His fingers shook. “It was you,” Sunstreaker said as his processor spun and wind rushed in his audials. “All this time.”   
  
He dimly heard someone call his name. The blaster wavered.   
  
He thought he'd been abandoned. He'd thought he'd been left behind. But no. Instead, his Prowl had been tortured, had been maimed, all because of Starscream. Who knew what else the Seeker had done?  
  
“It was you,” Sunstreaker whispered.   
  
“Sunny!”   
  
Starscream's energon-stained lips curved. He twitched beneath Sunstreaker, maybe intentional, maybe not given the way electricity crackled beneath his plating.   
  
He would have killed Sideswipe. He would have killed them all.   
  
They were in Uraya. No one cared about the Empties in the Waste. No one would care about this one either.   
  
Sunstreaker shuttered his optics and squeezed the trigger. He heard the rapport of the blaster through the static in his audials. He squeezed until the charge ran dry, until the scent of scorched energon and metal became too much to bear.   
  
He shoved himself away from Starscream, stumbling backward, dropping the blaster in his haste. He unshuttered his optics as pain returned to his awareness. As he realized the damp on his frame was not Starscream's energon alone.   
  
What… had he done?   
  
Sunstreaker looked down, saw the energon spilling out of his abdomen. He touched the raw, ragged edges of the wound. He thought that it should hurt. No. It did hurt. His spark squeezed into a tight ball, smaller and smaller.   
  
“Sunstreaker!”   
  
His knees hit the ground. He shuddered and tasted energon at the back of his throat, half-processed, gritty and sour. He tilted forward, catching himself on one elbow, the purge spilling out of his intake into a gross splatter beneath him. It contrasted mightily with the bright energon dripping out of his chassis.   
  
A spark for a spark, he thought grimly. How poetic.   
  
Energy fields assaulted him, comfortingly familiar. He felt hands on him, but his visual feed was a blur, a blur that clarified into a single bright optic.   
  
Dent. No. Not Dent. Prowl. His Prowl.   
  
“Prowl,” Sunstreaker whispered, reaching up to touch the side of Dent's optic with energon-stained fingers. He managed a smile.   
  
Prowl hadn't left him after all.   
  
And then the world went dark.   
  


***


	4. Part Four

Sunstreaker surfaced from the dark slowly, a low groan escaping his lips as his processor booted and grudgingly brought his sensory suite with him. Audials first, then optics. He felt oddly disconnected from his frame, but there wasn't any pain.   
  
His visual feed clarified from black to static to a dimly-lit room, one he didn't recognize. He wasn't at home. He wasn't in the local medcenter which was surely too far a drive from the cafe anyway.   
  
“Good morning, Sunshine.”   
  
“Don't call me that,” Sunstreaker croaked as he turned his head, finding Sideswipe sitting on a stool next to him, his face creased with worry. “Where am I?”   
  
“Safe,” Sideswipe answered as he scooted closer, the chair scraping across the floor. “Don't flip out, but we're in the palace.”   
  
“The what?” Sunstreaker struggled to sit up, only to hiss as his abdomen snarled a protest. His ventral armor felt really tender.   
  
He groped with his right hand, felt temp plating and a wealth of static bandages. His frame reported recent injuries, but nothing current. He'd been repaired. Someone had fixed him.   
  
“I said stay calm. Sheesh.” Sideswipe patted at his shoulder. “It was the closest thing to medical care we could get on short notice.”   
  
“But Starscream--”  
  
“--is dead.” Sideswiped cycled a ventilation, pressing his palms to his optics. “You, uh, kind of made sure of that.”   
  
Sunstreaker worked his intake. “I… Sides.”   
  
“Shh. It's okay.” Sideswipe squeezed his hand, his tone earnest. “I promise. No one's mad about that. No one around here's gonna miss 'em. You just got to him before Ricochet did.”   
  
Sunstreaker chewed on his bottom lip. “Ricochet?”   
  
“Yeah. It's a long story.” Sideswipe rolled his neck, easing the kinked cables. “Apparently, that's not his name.”   
  
“There seems to be a lot of that going around,” Sunstreaker muttered as his gaze wandered to the door. There was a shape on the other side of the glass as though it was being guarded. “Where's Dent?”   
  
“You mean Prowl,” Sideswipe said with another sigh. “He's in surgery and yeah, Starscream wasn't lying. Dent is Prowl, albeit a Prowl who's undergone Empurata and something else. I can't remember what they called it.”   
  
Sunstreaker worked his intake and managed to get an elbow beneath himself to leverage his upper half up, despite the pain in his abdomen. “I want to see him.”   
  
“You will, but not yet. He's still in surgery. Come on, Sunny. Don't ruin the medic's hard work.” Sideswipe half-rose out of his chair, hands making aborted gestures to urge Sunstreaker back down. “I promise to explain as much as I can.”   
  
Sunstreaker set his jaw but relented, laying back on the berth. “Tell me about Ricochet then.”   
  
“Right.” Sideswipe rubbed a hand over his head and sat back on his stool. “Ricochet's name is Jazz. He's an Enforcer Specialist from Praxus, and he was here to find Prowl. Unofficially, I mean.”   
  
Sunstreaker blinked. “Why unofficially?”   
  
“When Prowl went dark, his superiors opted not to look for him. Politics or something, I dunno.” Sideswipe shrugged, his gaze wandering away. “Jazz skipped out and came looking on his own. They're brothers.”   
  
Come to think of it, Sunstreaker did remember Prowl mentioning he had a brother.   
  
“Then why was Prowl here?”   
  
“To investigate Starscream.” Sideswipe made a face and folded his arms over his chest. He leaned back in the chair.   
  
“Why?”   
  
Sideswipe's foot started tapping out a nonsense beat. “Because mechs were going missing, and all traces led back here, to Uraya and to Starscream.” He slumped a little further, his field shrinking inward. “Turns out, they were right.”   
  
Sunstreaker's optics widened. “What?”   
  
“He was taking mechs, mostly ones he thought no one would miss, and experimenting on them.”   
  
Sunstreaker had no words. He stared at his brother. Sure, everyone knew to stay away from the Regent and Starscream could be creepy at times. But this? Was that why there were so many Empuras in the Wastes?  
  
Sideswipe shrunk into himself further, guilt swallowing his field, his gaze wandering away. “I mean, it makes sense in retrospect. The kind of stuff I got for him, it was supplies, medical equipment, devices that I couldn't tell you what they did.”   
  
Oh, Primus. That made them accessories, didn't it?  
  
Sunstreaker looked at the door, the shadow he was now convinced was a guard keeping them in this room. “Are we under arrest?”   
  
“Maybe. I dunno.” Sideswipe shrugged, looking very small as he cycled an audible ventilation. “Sunny--”  
  
He shook his head. “I know. You don't have to say it.” Sunstreaker slid the nearest arm closer to his brother and wriggled his fingers invitingly. “I'm sorry, too.”   
  
Sideswipe tangled their fingers together, giving his hand a squeeze. “I hate arguing with you.”   
  
“Then maybe you should stop being so stubborn.”   
  
Sideswipe chuckled. “You're one to talk.”   
  
A knock on the door interrupted Sunstreaker's response. He and Sideswipe both looked toward it as it slid open, two mechs easing inside. One of them was Ricochet, or at least Sunstreaker assumed him to be. The overall shape was familiar, the color scheme also similar. The largest adjustment was that his visor was now blue as opposed to purple.   
  
The other mech Sunstreaker assumed was a medic. He was large and blocky, with medic crosses on his shoulders and a white and red paint scheme. The grey chevron on his forehead denoted a mech of high status.   
  
“You're awake. Good.” The medic strode across the floor without delay, his gaze skimming over the machine as he unsubbed a datapad.   
  
Sunstreaker looked at him. “Who are you?”  
  
“He's the one who fixed you,” Sideswipe said with another squeeze to his hand. “Fixed me up, too.” His free hand patted his hip, where evidence of a static bandage gave proof to a previous injury.   
  
The medic grunted as he marked something down on his datapad. “The name's Ratchet. And if anyone asks, I'm not here.”   
  
“Ratch is kind of doing me a favor,” Ricochet – Sunstreaker couldn't think of him as Jazz yet – grinned. “I'm not s'posed ta be here either.”   
  
“Damn fools in Iacon think they can write off a mech and bury it,” Ratchet muttered, his words angered but his touch gentle as he disconnected Sunny from the machine. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”   
  
Jazz loosed a small laugh. “Yeah, I know, Ratch. I know.” He patted Ratchet on the shoulder, a brave action if Sunstreaker ever saw one, before he looked at Sunstreaker. “You okay?”   
  
“I don't know,” Sunstreaker answered honestly. His processor still felt muzzy. “Is Dent really Prowl?”   
  
“His spark is.” Ratchet grunted, his field turning sour. “We're working on making the rest of him match.”   
  
“We?”   
  
“He and his partner. You'll meet 'im later,” Jazz answered. “Prowl just came out of surgery, by the way. He won't wake for a bit, but ya can see him if ya want.”   
  
Sideswipe cycled his vocalizer to catch their attention. “We're not under arrest?”  
  
Jazz shook his head. “Don't have any pull to arrest ya. Like I said, we're not supposed ta be here. Besides, it's not like ya did anything wrong.”   
  
“You couldn't have known what Starscream was doing with the supplies you acquired for him,” Ratchet said before he disconnected the last line and held out a hand. “You can stand if you want. Carefully.”   
  
Sideswipe rose to his feet, keeping his grip on Sunstreaker's other hand. He felt very shaky as he accepted the offer of Ratchet's hand, and between the medic and Sideswipe, Sunstreaker was leveraged off the berth. His abdomen only ached a little, the ache of self-repair in action.   
  
“Take it easy,” Ratchet said as he let go of Sunstreaker's hand, leaving him to cling to Sideswipe as he balanced on his feet. “And no transforming.”   
  
Sunstreaker inclined his head. “Yes, sir.”   
  
“Don't call me, sir either.” Ratchet flashed something like a smile, his denta like a Sharkticon's.   
  
“Ratch don't take kindly to command,” Jazz said with a flash of his visor and a nudge with his elbow.   
  
Ratchet cast him a dark look. “Isn't there somewhere you should be right now?”   
  
Jazz held up his hands, backing away. “Sure, sure.” The light behind his visor shifted to Sideswipe, lingering, before he took two long steps toward the door. “I leave them in your hands then. I'll just go check on Wheeljack.”   
  
“You do that.”   
  
Jazz offered an uneasy smile and then he left, the door clicking shut behind him.   
  
“Does he bother you?” Sideswipe asked.   
  
Ratchet snorted. “Everything bothers me.” He peered at the weld on Sunstreaker's abdomen before straightening. “I can take you to see Prowl if you want.”   
  
Sunstreaker nodded. “I do.” He clutched Sideswipe's hand, spark squirming with a mixture of anxiety and relief.   
  
“Then follow me.”   
  
They left the tiny recovery room. No one one else was in the narrow hallway, and Jazz had made himself scarce rather quickly. Of the guard on their door, Sunstreaker saw no signs.   
  
There were other doors, all of them looked to be locked, their panels glowing a baleful red. They were labeled, some of the glyphs unfamiliar to Sunstreaker. He suspected he didn't want to know, especially if Starscream was performing all kinds of weird scientific experiments in here.   
  
“Why do you think Starscream did all this?” Sideswipe asked as they followed in the medic's wake, Ratchet slowing himself down for Sunstreaker's sake.   
  
“He was studying Empurata,” Ratchet answered before Sunstreaker could formulate a guess. “Starscream used to be a scientist in Iacon. One of our top researchers.”   
  
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker exchanged glances. “What happened?” Sunstreaker asked.   
  
“He left.” Ratchet tossed a look over his shoulder. “There are plenty of rumors as to why, but if you ask me, it was because of Shockwave.”   
  
The designation had an echo of familiarity to it, but Sunstreaker didn't know why. He couldn't think where he'd heard it before. It wasn’t like he'd ever been to Iacon and he'd definitely never set foot in Starscream's palace.   
  
Ratchet drew to a halt in front of a long, low window, one that revealed the interior of a recovery room similar to the one where Sunstreaker had woken. Sunstreaker peered inside, but unless Prowl had gone through a significant change in order to go undercover, that was not Prowl.   
  
“Who is that?” Sideswipe asked.   
  
Ratchet sighed, resting a hand on the sill as he looked in on the mech, dark purple plating contrasting with white hands and a protoform-bare head. “Shockwave.”  
  
Sunstreaker's optics widened.   
  
“Near as I can figure, Shockwave was one of the first to receive Empurata, though as to why the Senate thought he needed to be punished, he's probably the only one who knows.” Ratchet's voice took on that of a storyteller, his gaze fixed on the unmoving mech. “Worse, they also performed Shadowplay on him. Whoever did it was amateur, but thorough. I gather Starscream was trying to get him back to the way he was.”   
  
“Why?” Sideswipe asked.   
  
“They're bonded.”   
  
Sunstreaker startled, and he wasn't the only one. “What?”   
  
Ratchet cycled a ventilation. “Sparks are tricky things,” he said. “They took Shockwave's emotions, his ability to feel, but he remembers Starscream. His spark remembers and still loves Starscream, but he couldn't process what that meant.” He lowered his hand from the sill. “I can't imagine what that was like.”   
  
“I don't get it.” Sideswipe rubbed his arms. “If you could fix Prowl, how come Starscream couldn’t fix Shockwave?”   
  
“He was close to figuring it out,” Ratchet admitted. “Before now, I couldn't have returned an Empurata victim back to who he was. But with Starscream's research and my own put together… I can fix Prowl, and I think I can fix Shockwave, too.”   
  
Sunstreaker's hands clenched on the edge of the sill. “He won't ever know you did,” he murmured.   
  
“No, he won't,” Ratchet said softly and stepped back from the window. “Come on. I'll take you to Prowl. Enough staring at the unfortunate.”   
  
Sunstreaker pushed away, falling into step beside Ratchet, but Sideswipe lingered. He frowned as he stared at Shockwave, his field unreadable.   
  
“What did he do?” Sideswipe asked.   
  
“Come again?”  
  
“To get punished like that.” Sideswipe stepped away from the window, finally shifting his gaze to them. “What did Shockwave do?”   
  
Ratchet shook his head. “I don't know. None of us do.”   
  
“Does it really matter? He probably didn't deserve it,” Sunstreaker muttered. “Can we see Prowl now?” He felt jittery, anxious all over, and the delays didn't help.   
  
He still couldn't believe that Prowl was here, that he hadn't left because he wanted to.   
  
Ratchet gave him a long look but nodded and gestured for Sunstreaker to follow. “He's recovering, so I can't let you stay for long.”   
  
“However long I can get,” Sunstreaker said, his fingers twisting together. Excitement was replaced by anxiety.   
  
What if Prowl didn't want to see him?  
  
“What about his memory?” Sideswipe asked as he caught up to them, his shoulder bumping Sunstreaker's in a show of support.   
  
“He never really forgot, truth be told,” Ratchet answered with an aggrieved sigh and a rub of his chevron. “Starscream was smart, but he didn't know everything. Prowl's battle computer was cutting edge, experimental tech. What Starscream didn't know was that access to his memory core ran through it.”   
  
Sunstreaker flattened his orbital ridge. “So...”   
  
“So without it, he couldn't read his memories.” Sideswipe thumbed his chin. “What does that mean now though? Will he remember what happened?”   
  
Ratchet lowered his hand. “I honestly don't know. This is new territory. My assumption is yes, though there may be some distortions.”   
  
Some memory was better than none.   
  
Ratchet stopped in front of another medical room with a viewing window. “Well, here he is. He should be online.”  
  
“Thanks,” Sunstreaker said, though it was absent, his attention already caught by the window as he edged toward it and peered into the room.  
  
Sunstreaker's ventilations caught.   
  
The paint was scraped and worn. The sensory plates were still missing, surely on the to-do list for the medics, but there was no doubt in Sunstreaker's processor that Prowl was lying on the berth. His hands, his head, all were back as they should be.   
  
Scratches and dings and dirt aside, he was the most handsome mech Sunstreaker had ever seen. His spark ached to look at him. His knees wobbled.   
  
How long had it been? Months?   
  
Sideswipe rested a hand on his shoulder. “Aren't you going to go in?”   
  
Sunstreaker worked his intake. “I don't know if I can.” He gnawed on his bottom lip. “What if…?”  
  
“Bro.” Sideswipe squeezed his shoulder, his field gently enclosing Sunstreaker. “You ain't never gonna know if you don't find out. But I'm telling you, he was just like Shockwave.”   
  
Sunstreaker cycled his optics. “What?'   
  
Sideswipe had his serious face on. “Prowl didn't remember who he was, his own name. But isn't it curious that he still found you?” His hand slid to Sunstreaker's chestplate, right over his central seam. “The spark knows. And if his spark wanted you, ya can bet the rest of him does, too.”   
  
Sunstreaker stared at his twin. Sideswipe hadn't been the most supportive when Sunstreaker and Prowl first started seeing each other. In fact, he'd been a grumbling, stomping sibling for most of the time. He'd all but shouted 'good riddance' when Prowl first vanished.   
  
He honestly didn't have any words.   
  
Sideswipe patted his seam again. “So you need to get your aft in there, bro. Don't make yourself wait anymore.” His hand slid down and away, the other rising to give Sunstreaker's back a push. “Go.”   
  
He went, casting a final look back over his shoulder. Honestly, he wasn't sure he recognized Sideswipe anymore, but he had to admit he liked the change.   
  
Sunstreaker cycled a ventilation, braced himself, and opened the door. He eased inside, the quiet of the recovery room swallowing him up. There was a steady beeping, that of the machines monitoring Prowl's condition. The room stank of cleaning supplies, of weld-sparks and med-grade coolant.   
  
Sunstreaker inched toward the berth, the stool conveniently left beside it. Prowl's optics were shuttered. What if he were sleeping?   
  
Sunstreaker stalled. Maybe he shouldn't. Maybe he should just go. Prowl needed his rest, to recover. He needed to heal.   
  
He slid backward a step. His elbow hit something, a stand, it rattled noisily. Sunstreaker's spark skipped a beat as he spun to catch whatever it was before it hit the ground. Great. Graceless as always.   
  
“… Sunstreaker?”   
  
He froze again. The static-laced sound of his name was Prowl, through and through. He'd recognize the echo of it anywhere.   
  
Sunstreaker straightened and turned. Prowl's optics had onlined with a dim glow, but they were directed at him.   
  
“Yeah, it's me,” he said. Nothing to it now. He inched back to the stool and carefully lowered himself into it. “How're you feeling?”   
  
“As though someone had taken my head and put it through a shredder,” Prowl admitted with a curve of his lips. His gaze drifted downward. “You were hurt?”  
  
Sunstreaker instinctively reached for the static mesh on his abdomen. “It's nothing. I'm told I'll live.”   
  
Prowl's hand moved, reaching for him, fingers touching the bandage. “I always thought I was to protect you, not the other way around.”   
  
“Pfft. And I told you, I can take care of myself. Besides, it seems like you're the one getting yourself into trouble.”   
  
Something flickered over Prowl's face. “Yes. I made a mistake.” He cycled a ventilation, withdrawing his hand.   
  
Sunstreaker caught it before he could convince himself not to, tangling their fingers together. Hands. Hands where pincers had been. He still couldn’t believe he hadn't put the clues together.   
  
“Starscream realized why I was here, and I hadn't recognized that I was compromised.” Prowl's gaze dropped to their hands, his thumb rubbing over the back of Sunstreaker's hand. “I thought he would offline me. I prayed that he wouldn't punish you as well.”   
  
Sunstreaker's spark warmed as he felt the first stirrings of Prowl's field. It was weak, compared to the powerful force it had been before, a testament to his injured state.   
  
“I'm not afraid of Starscream. I never was.” Sunstreaker leaned closer as Prowl's optics brightened. “I'm sorry.”   
  
Prowl tilted his head. “For what?”   
  
Sunstreaker looked away. The wall, it was very fascinating. “I thought you left,” he admitted, shame coloring his field. “I looked, but I should have looked harder. I thought the worst of you and left you to suffer alone.” Guilt made his vents click. “I should have had faith in you.”   
  
“I was not alone.” Prowl's fingers squeezed his. “I remember, Sunstreaker, how you treated me kindly. When all others isolated me, you offered energon, and later, a place to stay, a home. You offered me friendship.”   
  
Sunstreaker squirmed on the chair. “I don't even know why I did that,” he muttered.  
  
“Because you are not the monster you think you are.” The medberth creaked beneath Prowl as he shifted, the only warning Sunstreaker had before his free hand touched the underside of Sunstreaker's chin, urging him to look at Prowl. “There's a reason I love you.”   
  
Sunstreaker's optics widened. His vents caught in his intake with a wheeze. A tremble raced through him, from the tip of his head to the ends of his feet.   
  
“You…. You...”   
  
“I probably should have said it sooner,” Prowl admitted, his thumb stroking the curve of Sunstreaker's jaw. “I thought to wait for the right time. I never could have imagined failing my mission first.”   
  
“I...” Words failed Sunstreaker, as they always did. He knew what he wanted to say, but he didn't want to blurt it out. He wanted it to mean something. “I… I missed you,” he choked out, words laced with static. “I missed you so much.”   
  
“I know,” Prowl murmured and cupped Sunstreaker's head, drawing him near until he could press their forehelms together.   
  
Sunstreaker ex-vented softly, leaning into Prowl's embrace. Tension eased out of his frame, out of his spark, leaving nothing but a gentle relief behind.   
  


~

  
  
Sideswipe peered in through the window, feeling at once jittery and relieved. He remembered how sparkbroken his brother had been. How cold and closed off he'd become.   
  
Now… now there was pure happiness in his optics. He leaned close to Prowl as if he couldn't bear to be separated again.   
  
“I never knew he could smile like that.”   
  
Sideswipe slanted a look to the left, registering the black and white frame approaching him. Ricochet – Jazz his processor reminded him – had changed very little about his appearance, which made for a jarring disconnect to Sideswipe. He still resembled the mech Sideswipe had taken to berth, all except for his visor.   
  
“I forgot Sunny could smile, too,” Sideswipe admitted as he watched the two mechs embrace, the armor on Sunstreaker's back shuffling before it settled down smooth.   
  
Jazz inched closer to him, his elbow bumping Sideswipe's, though his field was restrained. “They're lucky.”   
  
Sideswipe made a noncommittal noise.   
  
Jazz audibly cycled a ventilation. “I think we need to talk, Sides.”   
  
He shrugged, staring intently through the window. “There's nothing to talk about.” He kept his tone carefully neutral.   
  
“Other than us.”   
  
“What 'us'?” Sideswipe shifted toward Jazz, but put a distance between them. “It was never serious, if I recall. It was fun. No expectations. No promises.”   
  
Jazz's visor flashed at him, energon blue. “Then why do ya sound hurt?”  
  
Sideswipe ground his jaw then shook his head. “I don't have time for this. I need to figure out how me and Sunny are going to make it now.”   
  
Jazz's hand on his arm was warm. Coaxing. “Sideswipe, please. Five minutes.”   
  
His gaze slid back to his brother, who had gingerly climbed into the berth next to Prowl, snuggled up against Prowl's side. Sideswipe tried and failed to fight the spike of jealousy that gnawed into his field. He was proud of Sunstreaker, but he admitted, if only to himself, that he wanted what Sunstreaker had.   
  
He wanted it with the fire of a thousand suns.   
  
“Fine,” Sideswipe bit out.   
  
Jazz grinned and took his hand, tangling their fingers together. He tugged Sideswipe away from the window, down the hall, and to an unmarked door. Inside was what looked like a closet for data storage, hardly romantic. But it was small and private, what Sideswipe supposed mattered.   
  
He pulled his hand free of Jazz's and folded his arms. He wasn't going to let himself be swayed by pretty words and a prettier smile. He'd lived in Uraya too long not to be suspicious of a good thing.   
  
“Sides--”  
  
“Look.” He spun toward Jazz, determined to get the first shot fired. “You were on a mission. I get it. You don't owe me an apology or an explanation or to let me down gently. I get it.”   
  
Jazz worked his jaw. “Apparently, you don't. You seem ta be laboring under a serious misconception.” He inched closer, his field preceding him. “I meant what I said. What we had was nothin' to do with my business here.”   
  
Sideswipe looked away. He didn't want that thin spark of hope. It was dangerous. It wasn't meant for him.   
  
“I don't even know who you are,” Sideswipe gritted out.  
  
“So we start over. We give it a real try this time.” Jazz's field was gentle, coaxing, inviting. It held echoes of all the times they laughed. “Unless you don't want that.”   
  
Sideswipe hunched his shoulders. He didn't know why he felt hurt.   
  
“What's the point?” he muttered. “You're going back to Iacon, and I'm staying here to pick up the pieces of this mess.”   
  
“You that attached to Uraya?”  
  
He rubbed the heel of his palm against his optics. “Me 'n Sunny, we're barely moren' gutter mechs. Where else we gonna go?”   
  
“If you think Prowl ain't gonna offer your brother the world now, you're blind. There's no way he's leaving Sunstreaker unless Sunstreaker rejects him.”   
  
Sideswipe made a face. “Ah. Charity. I always did love the bitter taste of it.” He sneered. “Uraya's a damn sight better than becomin' some dolled up berthtoy.”   
  
Jazz sighed. “That's not what we're offering. It ain't charity either. It's a helping hand. You're both smart, talented, all ya need is a way to get started.”   
  
If there was one thing Sideswipe had learned living on the edge of the Wastes it was this: if something sounded too good to be true, it probably was.  
  
“Unless, of course, your objection to this is that you don't want to be with me, in which case, fine. I can take rejection. I still want ya to come to Iacon with us though.”   
  
Sideswipe stared at him. “No one is that generous.”   
  
Jazz tilted his chin. “So says the mech whose brother took in an Empurata victim out of the kindness of his spark.”   
  
“That's Sunny. He's special.”   
  
“And you're not?”   
  
His spark ached. It sounded like the truth, ringing in his audials. No. No, he wasn't. The special one was Sunstreaker. The shining star. The pure spirit.   
  
That was not Sideswipe.   
  
Jazz's field stroked over his, a gentle caress that recalled the night he'd spent tracing odd patterns into Sideswipe's back plating while they watched re-runs of an old comedy series. They hadn't interfaced that evening for some reason, but Sideswipe hadn't turned around and left either. He'd opted to stay.   
  
“I don't know what happened,” Jazz said, his voice oddly soft. “And I'm not asking you to tell me. But whatever it is, it's a burden you've been carrying for a long time. One I want to help you bear.”   
  
He inched closer, closer, and Sideswipe was hard-pressed to walk away. He wanted to lean in to what Jazz offered. He wanted to sink into the solace that seemed so welcoming.  
  
“I can't decide for you what we were, but for me, it meant something.” Jazz reached and Sideswipe was too weak not to reach back.   
  
Sideswipe let himself be wrapped into Jazz's arms, suddenly feeling small despite being almost a full head taller than the other mech. He pressed his forehead to Jazz's shoulder, listening to the rhythmic vents.   
  
“Let me be the one to look after you,” Jazz murmured, one hand gently stroking down Sideswipe's spinal strut. “Let me be your shelter.”   
  
Sideswipe chuckled, though it was full of static and nearer to a sob. “I didn't know you were such a poet.”  
  
“Ya must bring it out in me,” Jazz said, his voice warm with affection and humor. “Is it workin’?”   
  
“I don't know yet.” Sideswipe shuttered his optics, his thoughts awhirl. It was too hard to think, his processor drifting between too many points of concern. “I can't think right now.”   
  
Jazz hummed in his vocalizer, like the beginning of a song. “Then don't. When was the last time ya recharged?”   
  
He honestly couldn't remember. He hadn't recharged well since Dent vanished and Sunstreaker spent his free time out in the Wastes, looking for him. He thought he may have caught a few hours while waiting for Sunstreaker to come out of surgery, but Sideswipe wasn't sure. Trying to tap into his short-term memory was like poking at sludge.   
  
“Sides?”   
  
He unshuttered his optics and straightened, the abrupt motion making him stagger a bit. Primus, his head was spinning.   
  
“I don't know,” Sideswipe admitted. He worked an arm free, pressing the heel of it to his forehead.   
  
Jazz muttered something that might have been a curse as he eased out of the embrace and grabbed Sideswipe's hand firmly. “Come on.”   
  
“Why?” Sideswipe asked as Jazz pulled him with an unexpected strength toward the door. Then again, there was a lot he didn't know about Jazz.   
  
“You need to rest.”   
  
Sideswipe rolled his optics. “I'm not the one who got shot in the fuel tank.”   
  
“Sides, you gotta take care of yourself, too. Sunny's fine, I promise. Ain't nothin’ gonna happen to him.”   
  
They emerged into the hallway and Jazz marched him two doors down, to a room that was clean and unoccupied. Sideswipe balked a little. He wasn't sure he could recharge here, not knowing what Starscream had been doing in this place.   
  
“Ain't nothin' gonna happen to you either,” Jazz added as he backed Sideswipe up to the berth and gave him a little push, until his aft landed on the pad. “I'm gonna sit right here the whole time.”   
  
Sideswipe sighed and pulled himself onto the berth. Fatigue tugged at every cable and strut, but so did tension. He lay on the pad as stiff as a board. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so disconnected.   
  
“You're just going to watch me recharge?” Sideswipe asked.   
  
“Well, no. I figured I could work on some paperwork or somethin’.” Jazz gave him a crooked grin, one that was pure Ricochet. “Ya can't imagine how much I left behind when I came here.”   
  
Sideswipe huffed a laugh. He scooted over on the berth, his spark hammering in his chassis. “And I'll bet you haven't recharged either.” He patted the berth in open invitation. “There's room for two?”   
  
Did he sound hopeful?   
  
Primus, he did. He was a mess. He was also probably going to regret this when he woke later. But the memory of his jealousy, of Sunstreaker and Prowl scrunched together on that medberth, wouldn't leave him alone.   
  
“Ya sure?”   
  
“Wouldn't have offered if I wasn't.”   
  
Jazz stared at him for a long moment before he accepted Sideswipe's invitation, sliding into the berth beside him. It took some maneuvering until they found a comfortable position, one they often favored before, with Sideswipe curled around Jazz from behind. He could feel the soft purrs of Jazz's engine against his chestplate.   
  
The lights dimmed seconds later, some kind of remote control Sideswipe assumed. He cycled a ventilation and tried to relax into recharge, focusing on the pulse and ebb of Jazz's field. It offered him a comfort he couldn't have expected. He didn't think he would relax enough to recharge, but Jazz's frame in his arms was familiar and warm.   
  
There was no difference between Jazz and Ricochet like this.   
  
And that thought, combined with Jazz's welcome field, was enough to lull Sideswipe into recharge.   
  


~

  
  
Sunstreaker had lost count of all the times he'd woken from a pleasant dream only to be faced with an upsetting reality. The solace once found in his memories became tainted by the dread of onlining.   
  
This time was no exception. He was drawn away from a dream of Prowl returning, having never wanting to leave in the first place. Sunstreaker expected to wake up in a cold, empty berth with the reminder that he was still abandoned.   
  
Even the warmth felt like a lie, until the grouchy growl pierced the doubt like a blaster shot. Sunstreaker lurched awake with little subtlety as his short-term memory core dumped into his active queue and unmade the dream.   
  
“Calm down, kid,” the grouchy voice snarled as Sunstreaker's field spiked.   
  
His optics snapped online, vents wheezing, as he jerked out of a warm and welcome embrace.   
  
Bright lights. Antiseptic stench. Another field against his, one failing to soothe, the other painfully, achingly familiar.   
  
Clarity drizzled into his processor. Something warm touched his cheek. Fingers. A hand.   
  
Prowl's hand.   
  
“It wasn't a dream,” Sunstreaker whispered, his vocalizer spitting static. His vision clarified into Prowl's face, his soft blue optics, his gentle smile.   
  
“No,” Prowl confirmed, his field nudging more firmly against Sunstreaker's, grounding him. “I am here.”   
  
Sunstreaker's vents hitched. “How do I know I'm not dreaming now?”   
  
“I could shock you if you want,” the grumpy growl commented.   
  
Sunstreaker froze.   
  
Prowl sighed, his gaze sliding past Sunstreaker's shoulders. “Has anyone ever told you that you have an atrocious berthside manner?”   
  
“Many times.” Ratchet – Sunstreaker recognized his voice now – said. “You get used to it.”   
  
Prowl's lips twitched, his attention returning to Sunstreaker. “If Ratchet's less than pleasant temperament doesn't convince you, I'm not sure anything will.”   
  
Sunstreaker's lips curved. “I don't think I could have imagined him anyway.”   
  
“I'm right here you know,” Ratchet grumped, moving into Sunstreaker's peripheral vision. “And now that you're with us, kid, I need you off that berth where you shouldn't have been in the first place.”   
  
Prowl stroked Sunstreaker's cheek again before releasing him. “Your work remains immaculate, Ratchet. No harm was done.”   
  
“You are both in a sorry state. I'll be the judge of that,” Ratchet retorted as a scan washed over Sunstreaker, making his dermal plating itch.   
  
Sunstreaker reluctantly slid off the berth, but remained beside it, within Prowl's reach. It all still felt unreal, as though he was going to wake up cold and alone again. He sought out Prowl's hand, tangling their fingers together.   
  
“Well, you're not wrong,” Ratchet finally said as he frowned over something on his datapad. “Neither of you are idiots.”   
  
Sunstreaker squinted. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”   
  
“Sadly, yes.” Prowl sighed. “He's something of an acquired taste.”   
  
Ratchet's fingers flew over the datapad, foregoing a stylus. “I'll remember that the next time your reckless brother calls me for a favor.”   
  
“You would have come anyway.”   
  
“Yeah, but don't tell anyone.” Ratchet's orbital ridge flattened. “Now as cute as the two of you cuddling is, we need some privacy, kid.”   
  
Sunstreaker tightened his grip. “But--”  
  
“I am not leaving, Sunstreaker. Do not worry.” Prowl's field pulsed with affection. “I suspect Ratchet wishes to lecture me.”   
  
“Among other things,” the medic huffed.   
  
Because that didn't sound ominous at all.   
  
Prowl tugged, urging Sunstreaker down until he could press their foreheads together.   
  
“We have much to discuss,” he murmured. “But know that I do not intend to leave you again.”   
  
“You had better not.”   
  
Prowl stroked his cheek before pulling him in for a sweet kiss. Their lips moved together, as chaste as could be, though it sent a zing straight to Sunstreaker's spark. Warmth flooded his chassis.   
  
“All right. Enough canoodling, you two. You do want your flats back at some point, yes?”   
  
Sunstreaker reluctantly withdrew from Prowl's embrace. It was hard to let go, to walk away, though Ratchet's stare was insistent.   
  
“Do not strain yourself,” Ratchet warned. “No transforming. No heavy lifting. No strenuous activity of any kind.”   
  
“Yes, sir.”   
  
Sunstreaker cast a longing glance at Prowl who gave him a reassuring smile and shooed him on.   
  
“I'll comm you when you can come back,” Ratchet added with an aggrieved sigh.   
  
Sunstreaker didn't expect the courtesy. He offered Ratchet a small smile. “Thank you,” he said and made himself scarce, closing the door quietly behind him.   
  
He lingered in the hallway, peering through the window. Ratchet stowed his datapad and pulled up the stool on the other side of Prowl's berth. They were talking, Sunstreaker could see, with Ratchet making large gestures with his hands. Prowl looked resigned.   
  
Iacon business, Sunstreaker supposed.   
  
He wondered what would happen next. Prowl didn't live in Uraya and Sunstreaker didn't belong in Iacon.   
  
Sunstreaker sighed and forced himself away from the window. He needed to find Sideswipe.   
  
They had a lot of talking to do.   
  


~

  
  
Sideswipe woke to the soft whispers of conversation, one that wasn't directed at him. He surfaced from recharge slowly, his frame trying to pull him back under. Jazz, however, was talking to someone and Sideswipe's audials caught onto it.   
  
“--soon as we can, but I ain't promisin' anythin’, sir.”   
  
There was a pause, a whuff of irritation entering Jazz's field, and then he said, “Yes, sir. I understand. Jazz, out.”   
  
The irritation grew strength, until it whisked away, smoothed right out of Jazz's field. His hand slid down to the one Sideswipe had rested on his hip.   
  
“G'morning,” Jazz murmured.   
  
“What was that about?”   
  
Jazz sighed and wriggled about on the berth, turning so that he faced Sideswipe. “Higher ups getting twitchy in Iacon. Prime's been riding their afts hard.”   
  
Sideswipe's spark clenched. “You have to go back?”   
  
“Yeah. But not anytime soon.” Jazz's lip curved as he wriggled closer, notching their frames together.  
  
“Oh?”   
  
“Prowl still needs surgery before he can get mobile. He can't walk around properly without his flats.” Jazz nuzzled into Sideswipe's intake, in-venting sharply. “Plus there're dozens of victims here that are goin’ ta need help, not ta mention those hidin’ in the Wastes”   
  
Sideswipe worked his intake. “And they're letting you stay for that?”   
  
Jazz shrugged, his lips brushing Sideswipe's intake cables, prompting a shiver through his armor. “It's complicated. Prowl's kind of Prime's favorite, and he wasn't too happy to find out that the Senate had ignored the fact he missed the last seven check-ins. So he's sending a team to help. Once Prowl's back on his feet, he's supposed to lead it.”   
  
Desire dared trickle down his spinal strut. Sideswipe fought it off and leaned back so that he could meet Jazz's gaze.   
  
“What about you?”   
  
The blue visor dimmed, disappointment flickering through Jazz's field. “I did kind of leave without permission. Walked out on my job, too.” Jazz shifted back, putting some space between them, though their legs remained tangled. “I'll figure something out. Might be a position will open up pretty soon, since Prime's so mad and all.”   
  
Sideswipe ignored the disappointment that thought to fizzle in his spark. “How much longer will you be here?”   
  
“Until we fix what Starscream ruined, I guess.” Jazz shrugged, though it didn't feel casual. “Until Prowl's satisfied with what we've done. Ratchet will hafta go back sooner than that, but he's leavin’ us his best apprentice and Wheeljack. That should be enough.”   
  
“And then what?”   
  
“I don't know. It's nothin’ that can be decided in this moment, Sideswipe.” A twinge of annoyance entered Jazz's vocals before he sighed and sat up, sweeping a hand over his head. “I just… I don't know the answers. I only know what I want.”   
  
Sideswipe pushed himself upright as well, bracing his backstrut against the wall. “And that would be?” He drew his knees up, resting his arms over the top of them.   
  
Jazz's lower lip curved. He tilted his head. “I would've thought that were obvious by now.”   
  
“Indulge me,” Sideswipe insisted, twisting his wrists in a display of invitation.   
  
Jazz slipped off the berth but didn't go far, leaning forward to brace his weight on the edge of it. “Do ya think I have something to prove, is that it?”   
  
Sideswipe stared at him. “Everything I know about you is a lie,” he said quietly.   
  
“Not everything.” Jazz shook his head and cycled a ventilation. “Yeah, my name was a lie. Some of this, too.” He gestured to his paint, his frame. “But the personal stuff? All of that was true. I told ya stuff I shouldn't have. I...” He paused and shook his head again. “Ya got under my platin', Sides. I didn't expect that.”   
  
Sideswipe's ventilations caught. The confession actually sounded genuine. Not like the act Sideswipe had come to know. Nothing like Ricochet but something else.   
  
He scooted forward, to the edge of the berth, dangling his lower legs off the edge of it to either side of Jazz's frame. He still kept his hands to himself.   
  
“I like you,” Sideswipe said, though his gaze went past Jazz's head, focusing on the far, empty wall. “I didn't expect that either. I thought, maybe this time, I could have something for myself without worrying about leaving Sunny behind. I thought...” He trailed off, venting noisily. “I honestly don't even know what I thought.”   
  
Sideswipe pressed the heel of his palm to the space between his optics. His head ached, and he wasn't sure why.   
  
Jazz's field nudged against his. “You can still have that. I said I wasn't goin' anywhere, Sides. I meant it.”   
  
Sideswipe sighed. “Except back to Iacon.”   
  
“And I seem ta remember invitin' ya to join me.”   
  
“And I told you why I didn't like that idea,” Sideswipe snapped, sharper than he intended, his gaze whipping toward Jazz.   
  
The other mech's lips thinned. He folded his arms under his bumper and took a step back. “Then I dunno what ya want from me,” Jazz said, his field flattening.   
  
“Nothing. I don't want anything. I just...” Another frustrated ex-vent escaped him. He rubbed harder at his forehelm. “I don't know what I want.”   
  
“Then maybe you should figure that out.” Jazz took a sliding step backward, his door panels drifting downward. “Since your brother’s lookin’ for ya, now's a good time to start.”   
  
Sideswipe blinked. “What? Sunstreaker?”   
  
“Yeah. My agent just contacted me, warned me he directed Sunstreaker this way. He should be here any moment now.”   
  
Sideswipe hopped off the berth. “I have to go.” He hurried to the door, hoping to precede Jazz out of it.   
  
He hadn't told Sunstreaker about his relationship with Ricochet. He didn't particularly want to talk about it right now. He had too many things to figure out.   
  
“You're in a hurry,” Jazz observed. “Still never told your brother, I see?” There was accusation in his voice. Hurt, too.   
  
Sideswipe couldn’t deal with that right now. He scraped a hand over his head. “It's complicated.”   
  
“Simplify it,” Jazz said as the door opened and Sideswipe hurried through it.   
  
“No. Not now,” Sideswipe said as he spun on a heel toward Jazz. “I just… I need a moment. Time. Something. I don't know. I can't even think.” There was too much going on for him to find the right words.   
  
He needed distance. He needed space. He needed Sunstreaker to not see this at this very moment.   
  
But even as he thought it, he already knew it was too late.   
  


~

  
  
Sunstreaker rounded the corner to find Sideswipe and Jazz standing in the middle of the hall, very little distance between them, their expressions a mixed bag of complicated emotion. Sideswipe looked tense. Sunstreaker didn't know Jazz well enough to guess.  
  
“What's going on?” Sunstreaker asked as he approached them, his gaze sliding from his brother to Jazz and back again. “Did I miss something?”   
  
“Yeah. Somethin’.” Jazz's visor shifted to Sideswipe, his head tilting, before he offered a parting wave and spun on his heelstrut. “Ya know how to find me when yer ready to talk, Sides.” He nodded at Sunstreaker. “Glad to see ya on yer feet, by the way,” he added, and then he was gone, turning the curve of the hall.   
  
Sunstreaker cycled his optics. “You going to explain that?” he asked as he shifted his gaze to his brother.   
  
Sideswipe sighed and buried his face behind his hands, rubbing the dermal metal. “I wouldn't even know where to begin, bro,” he moaned into his hands before peering over his fingertips. “How's Prowl?”   
  
“Ratchet kicked me out. They're talking business.” Sunstreaker folded his arms. “Which is what we need to do. After you tell me what's going on with you and Jazz.”  
  
“Nothing.” Sideswipe's plating clamped down tight. His tone was every bit defensive.   
  
Sunstreaker narrowed his optics. “I'm not stupid, Sides. You haven't known Jazz very long for it to be something, which tells me it's about Ricochet.” He tilted his head, thinking.   
  
Sideswipe started going out a lot more after Ricochet showed up in Starscream's entourage. They flirted an awful lot with each other. To be fair, Sideswipe flirted with anyone halfway handsome that came into the cafe, but now that Sunstreaker thought about it, there was an easy camaraderie with Ricochet.   
  
Sunstreaker admitted to himself that sometimes he was self-absorbed and he was blind. He didn't notice things he should have.   
  
He worked his jaw, gritting his denta.   
  
He should have noticed this.   
  
“How long?” Sunstreaker asked.   
  
Sideswipe shook his head, taking a step back. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he said and started down the hall, back the way Sunstreaker came. “Come on. I know somewhere we can talk.”   
  
“You're dodging the question.” Sunstreaker moved to follow him, irritation growing in his spark. “Stop treating me like a sparkling, Sides.”   
  
His brother's hands clenched into a soft fist. “I'll stop that once you stop acting like one,” Sideswipe hissed.   
  
Sunstreaker drew up short, hurt replacing the irritation. “What is that supposed to mean?”   
  
Sideswipe stopped, too, and sighed. He rubbed his forehead. “Nothing,” he muttered. “I'm sorry, Sunny. I haven't gotten much recharge and we got a lot to figure out.”   
  
“You meant that.” Sunstreaker worked his intake as he caught up to his brother, something raw and aching inside of him. “Sides… you… why didn't you ever say anything?”   
  
“Because there's nothing to say,” Sideswipe replied, sounding exhausted. “You're my brother and I love you. That is all that matters.”   
  
“Clearly it's not.”   
  
Sideswipe sighed, loudly, with a catch in his vents. “Sunny, it's complicated. And it's not you. It's… other things, too.” He shook his head and spun back toward the door he and Jazz had been standing in front of. “I'm not going to talk about it in the hallway.” He jabbed at the pin pad, the door sliding open under his code.   
  
He went inside. Sunstreaker balked, hovering in the doorway. But it looked empty, clean, no signs of a night of debauchery. He'd walked in on Sideswipe before. It left him wary.   
  
“Get in here,” Sideswipe said as he hauled himself onto the edge of the berth. It sounded like less of a command and more of a tired request.   
  
He really did sound exhausted. Was he always this fatigued or had Sunstreaker never noticed.   
  
He entered, the door sliding shut behind him. “Sides--”  
  
“Fine, I admit it,” his brother said, soft but cutting, his gaze everywhere but focused on Sunstreaker. “I'd been seeing Ricochet, fairly regular, not like my usual play. Course I didn't know then that he was undercover Iacon else I might never have got started.”   
  
Sunstreaker twisted his jaw. “And you couldn't tell me because…?”  
  
“Because I knew you didn't like him.” Sideswipe ex-vented in a loud burst.   
  
Sunstreaker folded his arms over his windshield, careful to avoid putting pressure on his wound. “So? You didn't like Prowl and that didn't stop me.”   
  
“This is different.”   
  
“How?”   
  
“It just is!” Sideswipe snapped, his field flicking through the room like a physical blow. He ex-vented noisily and made a sharp gesture. “You're you and I… I couldn't afford the distraction.”   
  
Sunstreaker ground his denta. He stared at his brother, at the way Sideswipe couldn't meet his gaze, how he clamped his plating. He wondered if it was his fault. If this was a pain Sideswipe had always hidden from him.   
  
He wondered why he didn't notice and feared it was because he was just that much of a self-centered aft.   
  
Sunstreaker worked his intake and crossed the floor, throwing his arms over Sideswipe's shoulders before he could convince himself not to. Sideswipe stiffened in the embrace for a long moment, almost as though he were going to push Sunstreaker away, before he relaxed and rested his head on Sunstreaker's shoulder.   
  
“I don't know the words,” Sunstreaker admitted, his spark feeling too large for his chassis. “I don't even know if I'm saying what I mean to say or not, Sides, but you're my brother, and I love you, and I'm sorry that I've been such a burden, but I promise that's gonna change.”   
  
“Sunny--”  
  
He shook his head, cutting Sideswipe off. “You looked after me and you protected me and you probably did things I don't even know about.” Sunstreaker tightened his embrace, briefly gnawing on his bottom lip. “And I'm grateful for that. But I want you to be happy now. I want you to think about you, okay? Even if that means Ricochet or Jazz or whatever he's calling himself.”   
  
Silence.   
  
Sideswipe's ventilations shuddered. His field wrapped around Sunstreaker, much like their current embrace.   
  
“He asked me to come back to Iacon with him,” Sideswipe muttered, voice somewhat muffled. “I guess that means Prowl's gonna ask you, too.”   
  
Sunstreaker blinked. “What?” He drew back so he could look Sideswipe in the optic, more than a little confused.   
  
Sideswipe sighed. “Well, it's not like there's anything for us here, Sunny.”   
  
“I know that. I just...” Sunstreaker huffed a ventilation, trying to pinpoint why he wasn't leaping at the opportunity presented. “We don't belong there.”   
  
“We don't really belong anywhere, Sunny.” Sideswipe smiled, but it was crooked, a rare and genuine smile. “As it is, the only time I know I'm home is if it's you and me.”   
  
Sunstreaker cupped his brother's head and pressed their foreheads together. “Then whatever we do, we do it together. We leave Uraya, we try Iacon. We've survived worse than a little shine and polish, right?”   
  
Sideswipe lay his hands over Sunstreaker's. “Right.” He squeezed Sunstreaker's hands in agreement. “So it's settled then. We'll go with them?”   
  
“Well, we can go to Iacon.” Sunstreaker let a little chuckle free. “Whether or not it means we're with them is a different story.”   
  
“Pfft.” Sideswipe drew back, releasing Sunstreaker's hands, but only to rap his fingers over Sunstreaker's chestplate. “Ya can't fool me, bro. Ya ain't leavin' Prowl.”   
  
Sunstreaker's face heated. He folded his arms over his chestplate. “Oh yeah? What about you and Ricochet?”   
  
“Jazz,” Sideswipe corrected, though it was absent. He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “I don't know yet.” He scratched his chin with a sideways grin. “Still trying to get over that whole bit where he lied to me.”   
  
Sunstreaker gave his brother a rueful grin. “Well, he kinda had to, Sides. It's not like he was tryin' to hurt ya.”   
  
“Yeah, well, the path to the Pit and all that.” Sideswipe rubbed at his forehelm. “Anyway, that's my worry to have, not yours. Why don't you go cuddle with Prowl some more?”   
  
“Can't. Medic's got him.”   
  
Sideswipe hopped off the berth, stretching his arms over his head. “Then I guess it's time for you and me to see what kind of trouble we can get into around here.”   
  
Sunstreaker snorted and followed him to the door. “It'll be just like old times.”   
  


~

  
  
Nothing more was said about moving to Iacon, not because they didn't want to, but because Uraya and the Palace became a sudden flurry of activity. The relief team from Iacon arrived and swept in to take control. Ratchet was whisked back to the Prime's side, leaving behind his apprentice, a capable friendly mech by the name of First Aid who didn't so much as blink at Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, or hesitate when it came to the dozens of Empuras gathered up from around Uraya and pulled from the depths of Starscream's laboratory.   
  
It was a daunting task, one Sunstreaker did not envy. He'd hoped to hide in a quiet corner away from the noise and bustle, but somehow, he'd gotten roped into assisting. He and Sideswipe were familiar faces to the frightened and often barely coherent Empura population. They were the only ones capable of calming the frantic masses.   
  
It was exhausting work. Sunstreaker felt strained, pushed to the reach of his limits, but he could no more leave those Empuras to suffer than he could have left Dent to starve in the streets. The pull wasn't insistent, not as it had been with Dent, but Sunstreaker did pity them.   
  
He, too, had been like them once. Abandoned. Left for dead. Left to starve. Believing that no one and nothing cared. Except Sunstreaker had always had Sideswipe. He'd always had his brother by his side.   
  
Prowl and Jazz lingered.   
  
Prowl gave orders from the berth; Jazz ensured they were carried out.   
  
If Jazz and Sideswipe ever sat down to have a serious talk, Sunstreaker never saw it. By all accounts, it looked like Sideswipe was avoiding Jazz. The Iacon spy had a decent mask, but sometimes, Sunstreaker caught it cracking when he looked at Sideswipe. There was disappointment, sadness, but understanding beneath it all.   
  
He'd let Sideswipe go if he had to.   
  
Of course his brother would be a moron about this. But Sunstreaker knew better than to push. Sideswipe only dug in his heels if Sunstreaker tried to nudge him. It was best to let him come to a conclusion on his own.   
  
Sunstreaker alternated his evenings between Prowl and Sideswipe, nights spent in quiet contemplation or conversation. Now that Prowl's condition wasn't critical, his repairs had slowed in order to treat the more urgent of Starscream's victims. Prowl's orders, apparently, not that the Prime had been happy to hear this. He wanted Prowl back as soon as possible.   
  
Pah. Primes. Thought they could demand whatever they wanted and their minions would snap to obey. Sunstreaker said as much.   
  
Prowl chuckled and stroked a hand down his spinal strut. “They are the singular leader of Cybertron. It is only to be expected.”   
  
“They are only mechs,” Sunstreaker grumbled, though his engine purred at the light touches. It was maddening how easily Prowl could rouse him, and yet neither of them could do anything about the desire stirring their circuits.   
  
An overload could fry the sensory flats they'd reattached to his frame. Something about a neural relapse? Sunstreaker wasn't really listening. He got the gist of it. Overloads equaled bad news for healing.   
  
Fine.   
  
“They're not deities or anything.”   
  
“I would call that blasphemy save that it is the truth,” Prowl murmured, tilting his head to press against Sunstreaker's. “Only, do not say as much aloud in Iacon. At least, not in the upper rings.”   
  
Sunstreaker made a noise of disgust and buried his face in Prowl's front, right under his headlights. Right here, he could listen to the steady purr of Prowl's engine, reassuring himself that Prowl was alive and well.   
  
He still did not know if he could live in Iacon, but the idea of leaving Prowl was not one he wanted to entertain.   
  
“You know, there are art galleries in Iacon,” Prowl said, his fingers tracing a lingering path up Sunstreaker's back as though exploring each and every spinal bolt. “Dozens of them. With the right sponsor, you could even open your own.”   
  
Sunstreaker made a noise in his intake. “Those are for real artists.”   
  
“Which you are.”   
  
“Nnn.” He counted Prowl's ventilations, bathed in the familiar warmth of Prowl's energy field. “No one wants the gutter trash.”   
  
Prowl's hand slid up to his head. “They do.” He curved his hand around Sunstreaker's helm vent, tilting his chin up to look into his optics. “Do you know that I sent one of your works back to an associate of mine in Iacon? It sold within moments.”   
  
“It did?”   
  
“Sunstreaker, it outsold every artist in the gallery that evening.” Prowl's thumb stroked his cheek, his lips pulled into a soft smile. “Please do not ever call yourself gutter trash again. That is an insult deserved of no one.”   
  
Sunstreaker's spark did that flutter thing again. He pushed himself up on his elbows, giving him just the height bump he needed to press his lips to Prowl's. They could never go any further than a few kisses, than a tangle of glossae, and the taste of Prowl on his lips. Any more than that and Sunstreaker would be tempted to take it further.   
  
He pressed his forehead to Prowl's, feeling the light buzz of the sensitive chevron against his dermal layer. “I want to go to Iacon,” Sunstreaker admitted.   
  
He'd already decided weeks ago. Frag, he'd wanted to leave long before Prowl vanished. He'd burned for something more than Uraya. He'd burned for the chance to be something more.   
  
“And I would like for you to come with me,” Prowl replied, stroking his cheek again. “You need only say the word.”   
  
Sunstreaker smiled and settled back down, his lower half blanketing Prowl's legs, his upper half encircling Prowl's torso so that he might rest his head on Prowl's chest. He felt better listening to the steady oscillations of Prowl's spark. He thought to memorize the sound, so that he might never forget it again.   
  
“Or truthfully, you need only convince your stubborn brother,” Prowl said with a soft chuckle.   
  
Sunstreaker buried his face in Prowl's bumper and laughed. “If you figure out the magic words to do that, let me know.”   
  
Prowl rested an arm across his shoulders, his field pulsing affection. “Deal.”   
  


~

  
  
“Sunny with Prowl tonight?”   
  
Sideswipe would never admit to startling. But damn, Ricochet rarely walked this silently. He'd had a heavy tread, like a standard bodyguard. Jazz, however, managed not to make a sound.   
  
He side-eyed the other mech. “Yes,” Sideswipe answered as he ticked another item off on the datapad.   
  
Luckily for Prowl, Sideswipe liked numbers and inventory, otherwise he'd think this was a punishment. Taking stock was an important part of his business, however. And Sideswipe didn't mind. It gave him something to do, something to focus on other than the question nagging at the back of his processor.   
  
“Could I mebbe offer my company instead?” Jazz folded his arms under his bumper, leaning a shoulder against an edge of shelving.   
  
Sideswipe cycled a ventilation. “I know I play it pretty casual in the berth, but I ain't that easy.”   
  
“Not what I meant, Sides.” Jazz's visor glittered. “I was thinkin' we could talk.”   
  
“We can just as easily talk right here,” Sideswipe pointed out as he counted how many boxes of the lowest level pain chips they had in stock.   
  
Starscream had a lot of them, as it turned out, not that Sideswipe was surprised. He remembered acquiring them for Starscream a couple years back, before Prowl showed up in Uraya. In fact, he remembered “acquiring” a lot of the supplies here. It still surprised him that he wasn't facing legal action for this.   
  
Jazz shifted his weight. “It's not exactly private.”   
  
“Yeah, well, it's the best you're gonna get right now.” Sideswipe made another notation and bent over slightly to better see the next row. “I have a lot of work to do, as you can see. Your brother is keeping me very busy.”   
  
“I noticed. Sure don't stop him from makin' sure he got time to cuddle yours though.” Jazz snorted, but at least he didn't sound bitter. Instead, there was a fondness to his tone. “They're stupidly adorable, aren't they?”   
  
Sideswipe huffed a ventilation. “Don't remind me.” He made a few more notations. “Though I guess it's a good thing. Sunny deserves to be happy.”   
  
“And you don't?”  
  
“That's a stupid question.”   
  
A hand appeared in his line of sight, covering his datapad. Sideswipe's engine rumbled as he straightened to look over and down at Jazz.   
  
He and Sunny were of a height. It was interesting to him, however, that while Prowl was slightly taller than the twins, Jazz was a full head shorter than his brother. In fact, they didn't resemble much, except for their paint jobs.   
  
“Orders came down,” Jazz said quietly, his visor holding Sideswipe's gaze. “Soon as Prowl is mobile, we have to go back.”   
  
Sideswipe went still. “You said you would stay until the work was done.”   
  
Jazz sighed. “And apparently, someone's stirring up slag in Kaon and it can't wait. It's out of our hands.”   
  
Sideswipe made a noncommittal noise and tipped his datapad out from under Jazz's hand. “That leaves, what, two weeks?” The last time he'd spoken with First Aid, he said Prowl's self-repair had progressed enough that activating his new sensor flats could take place within a week.   
  
“Less.” Jazz retracted his hand, folding it back under his bumper again.   
  
Sideswipe shrugged, and pretended inventory was more fascinating, though it all swam in front of him. “Have a safe trip.”   
  
Jazz ex-vented noisily. “So you're going to stay here?” His engine rumbled. “Damn it, Sides. Why are ya bein’ so stubborn about this?”   
  
He paused and bowed his head. He cycled a ventilation, fingers trembling around the stylus. “Because I refuse to put myself in a position where my safety and security relies on the trust I place in someone else ever again.”   
  
“You think ya can't trust me?”   
  
“I don't know!” Sideswipe snapped, twisting away from Jazz, holding his datapad as though it were a lifeline. “You think you can walk in here like some kind of guardian sent from Primus or some slag, like you're rescuing us poor pieces of trash, and I should just be so grateful, I just follow after you like I don't have any self-respect!”   
  
The words rang in the air between them, as heavy as a physical attack. Silence fell in the aftermath, but Jazz neither retreated or stepped down. Instead, he gave Sideswipe a long, considering look.   
  
Jazz's visor dimmed. “What was his name?” he asked, and there something taut in his vocals, that hinted of self-control.   
  
Sideswipe shook his head. “It doesn't matter.”   
  
“It does ta me. 'Cause I'm not him, Sides.” Jazz's field fluctuated, a confused tangle of emotions.   
  
“No, you're not.” Sideswipe worked his intake, his spark shrinking into a tight ball. “But I don't know that you won't become him. Or them. Or any of the other mechs that walked away from us.”   
  
Jazz stared at him for a long moment before he unfolded his arms, opening his hands to show Sideswipe his open palms. “I can't say anythin' that would convince ya,” he said quietly. “I can't make a promise I don't know that I can keep. I can't tell ya to trust me either. I can only ask for a chance. If ya don't want to take it, that's fine. I'll walk away. I'll leave ya be. But Sides… ya gotta start somewhere.”  
  
He knew Jazz was right. That didn't make it easier to agree, to hold out his own hands and take the leap.  
  
He only wanted what was best. For himself. For Sunstreaker. For the both of them together. He wanted to see Sunstreaker smiling forever, he wanted to lay to recharge at night without worrying that another bad sales day could put them back into the Wastes with the Empura and the Empties. He wanted to have a steady income without skirting the threat of the law.   
  
“Anyway, I've said my peace.” Jazz lowered his hands. “It's up to you what ya wanna do about it. Just consider it, okay?”   
  
Sideswipe didn't answer. He cycled a ventilation, trying to calm the rapid flutters of his spark.   
  
Jazz headed to the door, as silent as his arrival had been. He keyed it open, only to pause in the frame, his plating drawn tight. “I only want ya to be happy, Sides. It don't even have to be with me.”  
  
“What would I even do in Iacon?” Sideswipe asked, well aware that he sounded petulant.  
  
Jazz offered him a small smile. “Anythin' ya want.” He tapped his fingers on the door frame. “Comm me if ya change yer mind. Number's the same as it's always been.”  
  
He stepped out and the door slid shut behind him.   
  
Sideswipe ex-vented and leaned against the shelving behind him. He shuttered his optics, well aware that he was shaking.   
  
Sunstreaker would tell him that he was being a stubborn idiot. Sunstreaker would be right. But Sunstreaker tended to look for the best in mechs. Sideswipe had learned to watch out for the worst.   
  


~

  
  
Sideswipe woke to a relentless pinging on his comm suite. It was a message from Prowl, requesting his presence in the medbay.   
  
He leapt out of his berth, instantly alert. Had something happened to Sunstreaker? That was his main concern.   
  
Sideswipe didn't bother with gathering energon. He gave himself a cursory glance in the mirror before he hurried out of the room and made a beeline for the main medbay where Prowl was receiving treatment. He all but burst into the room that was Prowl's, to see that Sunstreaker was nowhere in sight and Prowl was standing, albeit wobbly. The nanite gel slathered across his panel hinges shone in stark contrast to his paint.   
  
“Where's Sunstreaker?” Sideswipe asked.   
  
“I sent him to get real energon,” Prowl replied as he gingerly made his way to the window, tapping the controls for the panels to open. “I wasn't going to make him suffer medical grade like me.” He tipped his head toward Sideswipe with a wry grin.   
  
Sideswipe narrowed his optics. “Then why am I here?”   
  
“Because my brother is many things, but good at relationships is not one of them,” Prowl replied, bracing his weight on the window sill with one hand. The other gestured behind him, toward his bedside table where a single datapad rested. “That is for you.”   
  
Still suspicious, Sideswipe nevertheless crossed the floor and picked up the datapad. He powered it on with a flick of his thumb. Several documents were already queued up for review.   
  
“You are a business mech, so you understand contracts, correct?” Prowl asked.   
  
Sideswipe nodded absently as he read the titles of each of the documents. Certificate of Sparking. Certificate of Residence. Contract for Apartment Rental. Application for Introductory classes.   
  
“What is this?”   
  
Prowl's gaze did not waver. “They are what my brother was trying and failing to explain to you. Please read them.”  
  
Sideswipe smelled a trap, but he read the documents anyway. He drifted to a chair as he gave them his full focus, reading them backward and forward, down to the fine print, not that there was any. Every stamp was legit. Every carefully written phrase was written so that it could not be misinterpreted.   
  
It was ridiculously generous.   
  
They had purchased an apartment in Iacon for Sideswipe and Sunstreaker to call home. The lease had been put in their names alone and a full year's rent had been paid. There was even a clause written into the contract that no repayment was expected for the rent. There were, to put it clearly, no strings attached. They had an expense account to provide for their various needs: energon, classes at local institutions if they wished, even start up funds if they wanted to set up a new business. All of it in Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's names – their newly legitimate glyphs – and with the same clause.   
  
Sideswipe's jaw dropped. “This…?”  
  
“It is what we are offering you,” Prowl said as he turned away from the window and laboriously made his way back to the berth. “It is a helping hand, not an obligation. It is an offer that requires nothing but your signature. If you wish to take this and never see us again, you are within your right to do so.”   
  
Sideswipe shook his head slowly. “No one is this generous.”   
  
“Well...” and here Prowl offered a gentle chuckle. “There is some selfishness involved. It allows us to be closer to you, to not have to worry so. But then, if you do not wish to see us, we are willing to keep contact to a minimum.”   
  
Sideswipe's fingers clenched around the datapad. “What if we say no? You'll be out all of this credit.”   
  
“In terms of spending it on you, yes. But it won't be a waste.” Prowl lowered himself down to the berth, inching back into position. “There are others here, those whose lives Starscream had ruined, who would be willing to embrace this opportunity. It will be put to use.”   
  
A shiver rippled down Sideswipe's backstrut. He stared harder at the contract, tearing it to pieces with all that he'd learned in his years of doing business. It was legitimate. There were no risks, save trying to make it in Iacon in the first place.   
  
“Sideswipe.”   
  
He dragged his gaze to Prowl, who was giving him the most earnest look Sideswipe had ever seen.   
  
“I adore your brother,” Prowl said gently. “And I understand why you protect him the way that you do. I understand your hesitation. I understand why you feel you cannot trust us. But please know this, I will do whatever I can to see you smile. Both of you.”   
  
Sideswipe worked his intake. He bowed his head, the documents blurring before his optics. It was as though Prowl had heard every objection Sideswipe made, and found a solution to it, one he couldn't despise without sounding like a sparkling.   
  
The answers were all right there.   
  
All he had to do was take it.   
  


~

  
  
Sunstreaker walked into Prowl's recovery room, a small assortment of energon treats tucked into his subspace. He hoped to convince Prowl to eat a few of them.   
  
He paused, however, when he saw that Prowl was not alone. Why was Sideswipe here? Why did he look upset?   
  
“What's going on?” Sunstreaker asked. He hurried to Sideswipe's side, laying a hand against his backplate. “Sides?”   
  
His twin wordlessly handed the datapad to him. Sunstreaker frowned, but accepted it. He didn't understand any of the legal jargon, but the titles and summaries were clear enough. It was… it was an offer. An opportunity. It was a real chance for a future.   
  
“This is… Prowl?” Sunstreaker's gaze snapped up to his lover. His hand shook on Sideswipe's back. “You didn't have to do this.”   
  
“I know. I wanted to,” Prowl replied, his voice so warm. He smiled, ever so gently. “Consider it a gift.”   
  
Sunstreaker made a noncommittal sound, and knelt next to Sideswipe, forcing Sideswipe to look at him. “Sides, is this okay?”   
  
“It is.” Sideswipe clasped his hands together, leaning forward on his elbows. “It's all we could have wanted. It's a better life. Or a chance at one, at any rate.”   
  
“A chance is all you need. I have every confidence that you will be successful,” Prowl commented.   
  
Sideswipe cycled a ventilation and reached for Sunstreaker's free hand. “This is what you want, isn't it?”   
  
“Not if you don't.” Sunstreaker squeezed his fingers. He didn't want Sideswipe to make the choice based on Sunstreaker's wants. “I'm not going anywhere without you.”   
  
Sideswipe's lip curved, a half-smile. “We'd be happier there, you think?”   
  
Sunstreaker's face heated. He forced himself not to look at Prowl. “I do,” he said.   
  
“Then we'll do it,” Sideswipe said as he took the datapad from Sunstreaker. His fingers tapped something on the screen before he handed it back.   
  
Sunstreaker glanced down at the datapad and saw that Sideswipe had inputted his glyphs. He'd signed all of them. Sunstreaker's optics widened.   
  
“You're sure?”   
  
Sideswipe's free hand curled around Sunstreaker's head, pulling him in to press their foreheads together. “I'm sure.”   
  
Joy burst in Sunstreaker's spark. It was hard to attach his own glyph because his fingers were shaking. But he did and it was done and there it was, the choice made.   
  
Sideswipe pressed a kiss to Sunstreaker's forehead and then stood up. “Thank you, Prowl,” he said. “I need to go make some arrangements before we can leave.”   
  
Prowl inclined his head. “I understand. And you are welcome.”   
  
Sunstreaker stood as Sideswipe patted him on the shoulder and then left. Sunstreaker hoped he meant to find Jazz and tell him the good news. The tension between those two was enough to make everyone walk around on tiptoes.   
  
“I was beginning to worry his stubborn self would make him stay here,” Sunstreaker said as he approached the berth, handing the datapad to Prowl, who took it.   
  
“Yes, well, Jazz went about the wrong way explaining to him.” Prowl's lips curved in a wry grin as he reached for Sunstreaker's hand. “My brother is smart, but sometimes, if it does not involve a mission, he falters.”   
  
Sunstreaker drew Prowl's hand toward his mouth, pressing a kiss across the knuckles. “Good thing he has you to look after him then.”   
  
Prowl chuckled. “That's what elder brothers are for.”   
  
“And younger ones are for breaking the rules, right?” Sunstreaker asked as he dug into his subspace and produced the small bundle of energon treats. He held them up for inspection.   
  
Prowl's ventilations hitched. “Those are my favorite.”   
  
“I know.” Sunstreaker felt smug. “Want one?”   
  
“Do you wish for me to beg?”   
  
Sunstreaker laughed. “Not yet. Save it for when you're repaired.” He pulled one free of the package and held it up to Prowl's lips, letting his smile fade to go serious for a second. “Thank you, Prowl.”   
  
“For you, anything,” Prowl murmured and took the goodie from Sunstreaker's fingers, his lips brushing the tips of them.   
  
Sunstreaker's spark fluttered. Better that he knew Prowl meant it.   
  
He hoped Sideswipe understood it, too.   
  


~

  
  
He wandered the entirety of Starscream's palace looking for Jazz, even walking by Shockwave's recovery room again. Looking in on the purple – now green and white – mech always gave Sideswipe the chills so he hurried on, asking every mech he passed. Pinging Jazz's comm sent him straight to a messaging system.   
  
Perhaps he was busy, perhaps not.   
  
It was an hour before Sideswipe found Jazz in the dispensary, tucked at a table in the back corner, his back to the wall and allowing himself a full view of the room. He had a cube of midgrade in one hand and a small stack of datapads on the table in front of him. He looked up as Sideswipe entered the room, the glint to his visor cautious.   
  
“Sideswipe,” he greeted and gestured with his cube. “Care to join me?”   
  
“You weren't answering your comms,” Sideswipe said by way of greeting as he slid into the booth next to the Iacon spy, leaving Jazz only one escape route.   
  
Jazz ducked his head. “Sorry.” His free hand tapped the stack of datapads. “I was told to finish my paperwork upon pain of punishment. My brother can be an awful taskmaster.”   
  
“Among other things,” Sideswipe said. He folded his arms, leaning against the table. He watched Jazz from his peripheral vision. “You should have told me about the apartment.”   
  
Jazz's attention turned to his cube. “I assumed ya would think it another attempt to make you a berthtoy.”   
  
“Not the way Prowl explained it.”   
  
“Prowl has always been better with words,” Jazz replied, a touch of bitterness to the comment before he lowered the cube. “I guess that means ya made your decision?”   
  
“I did.” Sideswipe looked him in the visor. “Sunny sealed it for me, but yeah, I put my glyph to the contract.”   
  
Jazz's field spiked, but his reply was cautious. “Ya did? Ya weren't offended?”   
  
“I was never offended.” Sideswipe shifted closer, so that their thighs touched. “I told you, it was about trust. And that contract is enough.”   
  
Jazz's shoulders sagged. Relief made his plating unclamp. “I'm glad you think so.” His thigh nudged Sideswipe's, his field reaching out as well. “What does that mean for you and me?”   
  
Sideswipe leaned in, pressing their shoulders together. “It means that you have the chance to woo me, if you want.”   
  
“Woo?” Jazz loosed a little laugh. “I think I can do that.”   
  
“Good. Cause I'm looking forward to being swept off my feet,” Sideswipe replied, indulging in returning the press of Jazz's field.   
  
Jazz gave him a sidelong glance. “Well, I'm not sure I can pick ya up, but I'll do my best.”   
  
Sideswipe chuckled and shifted his weight so that he could rest his head on Jazz's shoulders. “Good enough for me,” he murmured. “Mind if I keep you company while you work.”   
  
“I insist,” Jazz said, reaching beneath the table to pat his thigh. He picked his datapad up and flicked it on, making a show of going back to work before he added, “I'm glad yer comin' back with us, Sides.”   
  
He offlined his optics, listened to the sound of Jazz's ventilations, his sparkbeat. It was the same as Ricochet's.   
  
A smile curved his lips. “Me, too.”   
  


~

  
  
The transport was the largest sentient vehicle Sunstreaker had ever seen. Prowl had introduced the shuttle as Silverbolt and Sunstreaker was embarrassed to admit that he gaped as the massive mech bent down to offer Sunstreaker a hand to shake. His hand had been thrice the size of Sunstreaker's.   
  
He was kind, however, and offered Sunstreaker a smile and a reassurance that they would arrive in Iacon safely, without so much as a bump in the flight.   
  
It wasn't the flight that bothered Sunstreaker. He was still uneasy about leaving Uraya and going to a city he'd never been, and only ever dreamed about. He worried about failing, about facing the ridicule of mechs who considered themselves his betters. He worried about meeting the Prime.   
  
He didn't worry at all about Prowl, who while not back to one-hundred percent, looked a damn sight better. He gleamed in the midday sun, his white plating as polished as Sunstreaker could get it. His sensory flats hung from his upper back, sleek and new.   
  
Sunstreaker wondered if he should feel something as he prepared to leave Uraya behind. He wasn't attached to the city, and he and Sides had packed everything important from their cafe and apartment, thus the reason for needing a shuttle transport. The only item of value in Uraya was his twin, and Sideswipe was going, too.   
  
He thought he should feel regret, maybe a tint of sadness, but honestly, Sunstreaker didn't. He found he was glad to leave Uraya behind. He was even, dare he admit, excited.   
  
Sideswipe still grumbled, ever the pessimist. He just needed time.   
  
Sunstreaker, however, tired of waiting. He was ready to leave it all behind.   
  
“Everything's loaded,” Prowl said as he came up beside Sunstreaker, placing a gentle, if chaste, touch to the base of Sunstreaker's backstrut. “You need a moment or…?”  
  
Sunstreaker shook his head, leaning into Prowl's embrace. “Nope. I'm good to go.”   
  
“Then shall we?” Prowl's free hand gestured to Silverbolt's ramp.   
  
Sunstreaker nodded and cycled a ventilation. He could do this. He was going to do this.   
  
Iacon, here they come.   
  


*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. There's so much room here for a sequel. SO MUCH.
> 
> If I ever find the time, I will write this sequel. Yes, I will. I cannot resist adorable Sunstreaker, political intrigue, the lead-up to war, and everything around it. 
> 
> As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated!!!


End file.
